


thieves in the night

by ShinjiShazaki



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/F, modern!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-24
Updated: 2014-05-20
Packaged: 2017-12-30 07:51:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 53,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1016023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShinjiShazaki/pseuds/ShinjiShazaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of all the things in the world to expect, waking one fall night to find a burglar in her apartment was the last thing on Annie Leonhardt's mind.  In the aftermath of the break-in and subsequent assault, there are many more things that she comes across unexpectedly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. pins and needles

Annie Leonhardt did not believe in extraordinary senses. She was a skeptic by nature, and she turned away with disinterest when stories of a sixth sense came up in the media. Still, there was no explanation for what happened that night. She woke up because she sensed something was wrong. Lying in the dark, she gripped her pillow and listened.

Someone was in her bedroom, and they were rummaging through her jewelry box. A line of cold fire ran down from the base of her skull and went through her limbs. She reached out and turned on her bedside lamp, and sat up in the middle of the intruder’s gasp.

“Put everything back and _get out_ ,” she snarled.

The intruder, a wretched looking man, jammed a handful of jewelry into his jeans pocket and tried to bolt. She darted after him, grabbing him by the back of his shirt. He squealed and spun, and Annie was not expecting that he would draw a knife from his belt and slash at her. She let go of him half a second too late, and was cut across the stomach for her error.

They stared at each other in the dark, the man’s eyes wide with panic. His hand shook badly enough that drops of her blood were flicked off the knife. In Annie, rage mixed with pain and half-formed fear. She grit her teeth against the last two and lifted her fists the way her father taught her. The man gaped, and she took the opportunity.

She lay into him with swift and hard rights and lefts delivered to his face and torso. He stumbled back in the narrow entryway, swiping at her with the knife to try and fend her off. The pain and heat in her stomach taught her, and she dodged each graceless swing.

His hand dropped, and she slapped the knife from him with a backhanded blow. She grabbed the front of his shirt with her left and punched as hard as she could with her right. The blow to his jaw left him reeling, and she hit him twice more before he crumpled, unconscious, to the floor.

Annie, panting, shaking, followed him down and rolled him over to get into his pocket. Carefully, she retrieved everything he had taken. Wondering why it hurt to do this, she reached out and turned on the hall light. She discovered that she had broken the skin on the knuckles of both hands, and was scraping open flesh against denim. It made her more aware of the pain in her stomach, and she put her forehead against the wall to try and focus on something else.

After a few minutes, she stood up and went to the kitchen to retrieve a large ball of twine. She bound the man’s wrists and ankles tightly. By the time she was done, it hurt to breathe. She shuffled back to the kitchen and got a clean dishtowel to press against her stomach. From there, she went to the coffee table in the living room to retrieve her phone, and dialed nine-one-one.

“ _Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?_ ” said a man on the other end.

“Someone broke into my apartment,” Annie said, setting her jaw against the tremble she could feel in her throat. “We fought. He cut me with a knife.” She checked the towel, finding it soaked through with blood. “Badly.”

“ _Tell me your address,_ ” the man said calmly. “ _I’ll get an ambulance over to you._ ”

“One eighty-five north beech avenue, apartment twenty-eight. You should send over the police, too. I knocked him out and tied him up.”

“ _Of course. Tell me your name so I can tell the officer._ ”

“Annie. Annie L-Leonhardt.” She grimaced, bending double.

“ _Annie. Annie, listen, okay? The ambulance won’t take long because you’re close to the hospital. Do you want me to stay with you until an officer or the paramedics get there?_ ”

“No, I’ll be fine. I just want to sit down.”

“ _Okay. Someone will get to you soon. Hang on a little while._ ”

“All right. Thank you.”

“ _No problem. Keep calm._ ”

The call disconnected. Annie went into the bathroom after putting the jewelry away and sat on the edge of the tub, bloody feet inside. She could feel blood soaking into the waistband of her sleeping pants, hot turning to sticky cold as it seeped around to her back. She put as much pressure on the cut as she could stand, holding her arm down along its length. The pain distracted her more and more; she almost did not hear the knock on her front door. Wobbling briefly when she stood, she walked to the door and stared at it.

“This is the police,” said a woman’s voice. “Miss Leonhardt, open the door.”

She turned the lock, fingers slipping twice on the knob before she could open the door. Beyond was an Asian woman dressed in uniform, a full head taller than Annie. Her hair was short to the jawline, richly black to Annie’s blonde. Her eyes went from Annie’s bloodiness and pallor to the unconscious man only a moment before she stepped inside and focused entirely on Annie.

“The paramedics will be here any minute,” she said. “Do you have a large towel in the meantime?”

Annie nodded. “H-hanging in the bathroom.”

The officer turned about sharply and went into the bathroom. She tied the towel around Annie, pulling tight enough that Annie grunted.

“Sorry,” the officer said, “but you’re looking pale. It’ll just be until they get here.”

Annie nodded again.

The officer took her by the shoulders and guided her to the small dining room, sitting her down. When she took her hands away, Annie realized that she was shaking badly. Trying to stifle the trembling only made it worse. She stared at her bloody hands. She startled when the officer gently took those bloody hands to still them.

“Take a deep breath for me,” the officer said.

She could not. Panic and pain was closing her throat.

The office knelt down in front of her, still holding her hands. “It’s okay. One deep breath.”

Annie swallowed around the lump in her throat, but still could not breathe properly.

“It’s okay,” the officer said again. “It’s the adrenaline. You’ll get it in a second.”

Annie swallowed again and looked at the name pin on the woman’s shirt, which read “M. Ackerman.” She asked, “Wh-what’s the ‘M’ for?”

“Mikasa.”

“Mikasa, are you in here?” a man’s voice called from the door.

“I am,” she called back. “Cut him loose and cuff him before he wakes up.”

“Who’s th-that? Your partner?”

“No, I don’t have one. That’s Armin, so Eren should be along in a second.” She turned away at the sound of a siren. “There’s the paramedics. Can you take one deep breath before they come in?”

She closed her eyes, tried three times, and finally took a breath. Though the shaking did not stop and the pain did not cease, it calmed her a little. Mikasa continued to hold her hands while she breathed, and did not let go when the paramedics came in. She helped Annie to her feet, only releasing her hands when the two men came close. Annie was grateful that she stayed near when the paramedics undid the towel and lifted her cut shirt to examine her.

“Come on,” one man said. “Let’s get you to the hospital. We’ll get a gurney.”

“I can walk,” Annie said, bristling despite her shaking.

“No,” Mikasa said sternly. Her look was just as stern, and Annie could not find the fight in herself to argue. Still, she followed the paramedics to the door and waited outside. It was frigid in late fall, but the thought of putting her bloody feet in her sneakers made her angry. She turned at a groan, finding the man, freed from twine and held by handcuffs, opening his eyes. He looked at her and started to cry. She failed to care.

Another pair of officers came up the sidewalk with the paramedics, one sandy-skinned with brown hair and the other pale and blond. The brown-haired man said, “Give us a rundown before they cart you off.”

“I think he came in through a window,” Annie said. “He tried to take my jewelry. I got it back.”

“I’ll take her full statement after she gets treatment,” Mikasa said as the paramedics helped Annie onto the gurney. “Radio me if you need anything.” After retrieving Annie’s purse and phone from the coffee table, she followed them to the ambulance and climbed into the back when Annie was loaded. They drove off, Annie struggling to not curl into a ball on the gurney. The hand Mikasa kept lightly on her shoulder helped. It took ten minutes to get to the hospital, and by the end Annie was lightheaded.

Mikasa saw the lack of focus in her eyes and reached down to take her hand. “Keep breathing. Try to stay awake.”

The clatter of the gurney beneath her as the paramedics unloaded her was shocking enough to jar her briefly back into full consciousness. A seed of fear took root in her. All she could think of was the pain and the sheer amount of blood she knew she had lost. The paramedics rushed her inside, but Mikasa kept pace to hold her hand to Annie’s shaking shoulder.

She was ferried away to a corner of the ER, where a duo of doctors set to work on her. They spoke to each other sharply, but Annie could no longer concentrate on words. The world looked fuzzy. She grit her teeth and clung to consciousness. When something jabbed her stomach near the cut, a part of her snapped. She jerked upright and swung her left at the man holding a needle in her stomach. Mikasa grabbed her by the wrist, and caught her right just as easily. She pinned Annie’s arms to the bed.

“Calm down,” she said, voice strained with the effort of holding Annie down as she struggled. “It’s a local anesthetic to take the edge off while they work. Just focus on me and breathing.” When cold tingling began to spread across her stomach, she began to calm. She opened her hands and went still, but Mikasa did not release her. Instead, she leaned closer and took up the whole of Annie’s vision. “Come on, focus on me. Tell me what my name is.”

She felt odd pressure on her stomach, but said, “Mikasa Ackerman.”

“What’s my job?”

“Policewoman.”

“Where are we?”

“The hospital.”

Mikasa glanced over her shoulder. “What city are we in?”

“Maria.”

“Sina. What did you have for breakfast this morning?”

“I…can’t remember.”

“Are you going to try and hit me if I let you go?”

Annie shook her head.

Mikasa released one of her wrists to hold up outstretched fingers “How many fingers do you see?”

She squinted. “Three.”

“Two.” She turned about. “She’s getting hazy.”

“Miss Leonhardt, we’re getting a blood transfusion right now, so just stay with us a little longer.”

Annie nodded and wasn’t sure why. She tried to look past Mikasa, but she leaned in again to block her sight. Frowning, Annie asked, “What’re you doing?”

Mikasa raised a brow. “Do you want to watch him stitch you up?”

She considered it, but eventually shook her head.

“Keep focused on me. I want you to stay with me until they get the transfusion.”

“Okay,” Annie said.

“Tell me who I should call for you.”

“What?”

“Your friends and family. Who needs to know you’re here?”

She went quiet. After a minute, she said, “My ex.”

“That’s all?”

“She’s the only one who I’d want to visit me.”

“What’s her name?”

“Christa Renz.”

“Is she in your contacts?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think you can unlock your phone so I can call her?”

Annie nodded, taking the phone when Mikasa offered it. Her fingers trembled, but she managed to unlock the phone and go into her contacts. She gave the phone back when the letters blurred and shifted on the screen, hiding her eyes behind her hands. She listened to Mikasa as she spoke.

“Is this Christa Renz?” she asked. After a few moments, she continued. “This is officer Mikasa Ackerman of the Sina P.D. I’m calling on behalf of Annie Leonhardt.” A longer pause this time; Annie wondered what time it was, when she was forcing herself back into Christa’s personal life. Mikasa said, “There was a break-in, and Miss Leonhardt was injured by the—”

She heard Christa’s voice over the phone, loud and high with horror. “ _ **Injured**? Is she okay?_ ”

“She’ll be fine. We got here in time.”

“ _Can I come see her? Where is she?_ ”

“Sina General. It’ll take some time before she’s put in a room and ready for visitors.” Silence; Christa had lowered her voice. “Maybe forty minutes. Twenty minutes minimum. Are you sure you don’t want to wait until tomorrow? It’s—”

The quiet was heavy. Annie turned away because she could feel Mikasa looking at her.

“I’ll see what I can do if you get here soon. And I’ll try to keep her awake for you.” There was another brief silence before Mikasa said, “Right, just ask for Ackerman. I’ll let the staff know.” Annie heard her say, “Until then, Miss Renz,” before she went quiet. It took some time before she spoke again. “She’s very worried about you.”

“You’re the one who said I’d be fine.”

“Miss Leonhardt?”

She peeled her hands from her eyes, looking to find the two doctors smiling at her. One was holding a blood bag. She looked at her stomach, seeing it stitched neatly and looking awful.

“Ready to get cleaned up and into a room?” asked the doctor she’d tried to hit.

“God yes,” she mumbled. Soon after, she had been cleaned of blood, bandaged, and put into a hospital gown. The two doctors slipped an IV line from the blood bag and another bag into her arm before wheeling her bed out of the ER. Mikasa followed at her side all the way to a small, private room, pulling over a chair to sit beside the bed after telling the doctors to let in anyone asking for her.

“Miss Renz asked me to keep you awake,” said Mikasa, “and I’d like to take your statement while the incident is still fresh.” She took a small digital recorder from a pocket on her shirt. “Can you tell me what happened?”

The adrenaline was finally leaking out of her limbs. She let herself hazard a guess that the other bag was laced heavily with painkillers, based on how soft her body felt. All she wanted to do was go to sleep and be ready to go home in the morning. Mikasa looked at her steadily before reaching out and clasping her wrapped hand.

“Can you be strong for me a little while longer?” she asked.

It was an oddly personal request, one that took Annie aback. She studied Mikasa’s eyes, so deep and darkly black. There was a scar close to one of those eyes, high on her right cheek. Annie took a moment to enjoy how pretty she was.

“Okay,” she said, and cleared her throat. Mikasa stood and came closer, turning on the recorder. She said into it, “This is officer Mikasa Ackerman. Please state your name,” before holding it out toward Annie.

“Annie Leonhardt.”

“Please explain what happened to you tonight.”

“It’s going to sound stupid.”

“Even if it does, I need to know. Please.”

“I was asleep in my bed and…I sensed something was wrong and I woke up.”

“What happened after you woke up?”

“I listened and heard someone pawing through my jewelry box. I turned on the light and told the guy to put everything back and get out. Then he ran.”

“And you pursued him.”

“Yeah. I grabbed his shirt from behind, and he spun around and cut me with a knife.” She sighed. “That was stupid.”

“Officer noting from physician reports that the cut was half an inch deep at its greatest depth, and that it covered the width of the victim’s stomach. Miss Leonhardt, the perpetrator was incapacitated and tied up on my arrival to your residence. What happened after he cut you?”

“He got scared. I took him down.”

“Please elaborate.”

“My father taught me how to box and fight. I just…did what he trained me to do. Basic rights and lefts, and I knocked the knife out of his hand. Then I hit him in the face three times and knocked him out.

“Did you tie him up before or after your call to nine-one-one?”

“Before. I never know how long someone’s going to be out.”

“Is there anything else you’d like to say about this incident?”

Annie thought. “Can you double check and make sure I got everything out of his pockets? I can’t remember if I did.”

“Of course.” She switched off the recorder.

“It was that deep?” Annie asked.

“The doctors think you tore it a little. Now I know how that could have happened.” She saw the tiny trace of anxiety on Annie’s face and said, “Surgery wasn’t discussed.”

“Did they say how soon I can go home?”

“Not for a while. It’s a very awkward place to be seriously injured, and they don’t want you pulling at the stitches.”

Annie sighed through her nose and looked at the ceiling.

“Don’t like hospitals?”

“There’s no good reason to be in a hospital unless you’re pregnant.”

Mikasa hummed faintly and put the recorder away. "I’m glad we’re here anyway. You were pretty bad when I got to your apartment.”

“You didn’t act like it.”

“What good is a cop who loses their head? You were scared enough on your own. You didn’t need me to make it worse.”

Annie looked at her and softly said, “Thanks.”

“I couldn’t do anything less for someone who needed my help.”

Unsure of what else to say, she asked, “How’d you get the scar near your eye?”

Mikasa smiled, and Annie knew she’d told the story countless times before. “Not too differently from you. I went chasing a suspect, and he swiped at me with a knife. That was when I was a rookie.”

“How long ago?”

“About three years.”

“Huh. Why a policewoman?”

Mikasa opened her mouth, but stopped at a knock on the door.

“Officer, there’s a couple guests for this patient,” said a nurse.

Annie turned. In the doorway stood a petite blonde woman, very pretty despite her disheveled pajamas under a coat and her distraught expression. Beside her was a dark-skinned, dark-haired woman who towered head and shoulders over her.

“Oh my God, _Annie_!” the blonde woman gasped, running into the room and throwing her arms around Annie’s neck. She held tight enough that Annie could feel her shaking.

“Hi, Christa,” she murmured, and she curled her arm to touch Christa’s back after a moment. She looked over Christa’s shoulder as the tall woman came awkwardly inside. “Hi, Ymir.”

“ _Christ_ , big-nose, what happened?” Ymir asked. “You look like you’re gonna die.”

Christa turned to Mikasa, who held up her hands. “She’ll be okay. She just needs to stay here and rest.”

“What happened for you to need _blood_?” Christa asked.

“I fought a guy with a knife.”

“What possessed you to do something like _that_?”

“He broke into my apartment and tried to steal my jewelry.”

“You got hurt enough to go to the hospital over _jewelry_?” Ymir asked. “What are you, nuts? You—”

“Ymir, shush,” Christa said, and Ymir promptly shut her mouth. Christa let go of Annie then, taking her hand instead. “Thank God you’ll be okay.”

Annie looked at their hands, wondering when last they had done this. She couldn’t remember, and didn’t care to dwell on it. Instead, she said, “I know it’s the middle of the night and I scared the hell out of you, but can you do me a favor?”

“Anything.”

She looked at Mikasa. “Can she go with you to my apartment and get me some things?”

Mikasa raised a brow. “Do you want her to see what happened in there?”

It took a few moments, but she remembered all the blood. “It can wait.”

“No, officer, it’s okay,” Christa said. “Can I go with you?”

“Christa, it can wait,” Annie repeated. “It’s nothing important.”

“But what is it?”

She could see the dead-set edge in Christa’s eyes and knew she shouldn’t have asked, shouldn’t have called. Christa would do whatever she wanted if she was laid out half-dead in the hospital, and she would have done the same for Christa. She looked away. “I have to stay for a while. I just wanted a change of clothes for when I leave and my Kindle so I won’t get bored.”

“Is everything where you always put it when I lived there?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” She turned to Mikasa. “Do we go in your car?”

“It’ll have to be yours. I rode here in the ambulance.”

“Oh. Erm, all right.” She let go of Annie’s hand and went to Ymir. “Sweetie, I know you hate blood. Can you stay here and keep an eye on Annie?”

For a brief moment, Annie could see displeasure on Ymir’s face. But it faded quickly, and Annie felt a kinship with her about being weak to Christa’s pleading looks. Ymir grumbled, “Okay.” She bent down when Christa tugged on her shirt, taking Christa’s swift kiss.

Annie looked away again, an ache appearing in her chest. She did not turn back when Christa took her hand one last time, nor did she speak when Christa whispered, “Sorry.” She listened to retreating footsteps, blinking when Ymir came around and sat down in the chair. They regarded each other in silence for a long while.

“I made her cry, didn’t I,” Annie said.

“Yep,” said Ymir. “I think she had a heart attack when the cop said she was calling for you.”

“Sorry.”

Ymir shrugged. “She’s tough. I’ll hold her while she pretends to sleep tonight and make sure she eats tomorrow.” She smirked. “She’ll probably still be nervous for you after you get out.”

“Don’t let her be. Please.”

“You wouldn’t have called if you didn’t want her to worry about you, so don’t try acting noble with me.”

Annie tried to summon a sour look, but she was too tired to manage more than a faint frown.

Ymir laughed at her. “You don’t scare me when you’re at your best, and you can’t get out of bed now. Knock it off.”

She continued to frown for a while longer, but gave up. Eventually, she asked, “How’s Christa?”

“Good. She’s riding her bikes a lot. Drags me with her to mountain bike races, which she wins most of the time. Happy at work, despite working with you. She says she misses having lunch with you.”

“You’re not threatened by that?”

“Nah. Why would I be? Yeah, she still likes you a little, but she’s told me that she doesn’t want to get back together with you. Won’t really tell me what happened between you two.”

Annie hummed flatly.

“Not gonna tell me?”

“Are you trying to get info on me while I’m too drugged up to keep my mouth shut?”

“A little. Maybe I’m tired of you giving me death glares when I visit the office for her and I want some ammo against you.”

“I don’t give you death glares.”

“Yeah you fuckin’ do. Come on, just tell me if it was some crazy screaming breakup.”

For a long time, Annie looked at her. There was nothing openly malicious in her gaze, only steady curiosity. She asked, “Why haven’t you asked Christa about it?”

Ymir waved her hand. “She said nothing really happened between you two, and you just sort of broke up. Why is she so scared to talk to you if nothing happened?”

“We had a disagreement and said things we didn’t take back. After that we drifted apart. This is the first time in five months we’ve talked about anything personal.”

“So it took you nearly getting killed before you’d let her in again?” Ymir snorted with scorn. “You’re an idiot.”

Annie did not respond. They resumed their silence for a full ten minutes, Annie staring at the ceiling while Ymir watched her. Ymir broke the silence by sighing heavily and sitting back in the chair, stretching out her long legs.

“Hey, what’s that cop’s name?” she asked. “She looks familiar.”

“Were you arrested by her?” Annie replied.

“Fuck you, I don’t get arrested. I think I did a tattoo for her.”

Annie looked at her. “You’re a tattoo artist?”

“Hell yes. That’s how me and Christa met.”

She could not immediately parse this. “You—Christa has a tattoo? Since _when_?”

“About four months. She came in wanting something on her back.”

“Don’t those _hurt_?”

“Christa’s tough as all hell. We did it in stages, since it was a big one. We got to know each other, and then we started dating.”

“Christa has…she has a big tattoo on her back now?” She hesitated. “Of what?”

Ymir smirked. “She came in with this drawing someone had done for her of all these great flowers. Lilies, roses, orchids, morning glories, she named ‘em all. It was like a bouquet. And it’s just crazy pretty on her.”

Annie wondered what it looked like for a few moments before reminding herself that she would never know and giving up.

Her expression did not go unnoticed. “She’d show you, you know. It’s not like she hates you.”

Annie said nothing.

“What, you want me to ask her?”

“Shut up.”

Ymir scowled and sat forward in the chair. “You know what? _No_. I’m stepping in for my girl ‘cause you’ve got her scared. Would you just _talk_ to Christa? She fuckin’ misses you. Or is it that you hate her?”

Softly, she said, “I don’t.”

“Then get over this stupid shit and talk to her again! Jesus fucking Christ, what is wrong with you that you won’t talk to a sweetheart like her unless you’re in the hospital?”

“They’ll throw you out if you don’t stop yelling, you know.”

Fury flared in Ymir’s eyes for a few seconds before she relaxed, another smirk coming to her. “Oh, I get it. You’re jealous of me.”

Annie regarded her coolly before saying, “A little. I’d be jealous of anyone with Christa.”

Brows rising, she asked, “You’re just going to admit it?”

“Why not? She’s a wonderful woman, and I screwed up with her.”

“Don’t tell me you think you don’t deserve to talk to her anymore. That’s a fat lot of bullshit. She wants to talk to you, so—”

“I’m not over her.”

“Not surprised.”

“I miss her too much to talk to her right now.”

“Hasn’t it been, like, five months?”

“I know. I’m trying.”

“Try harder, asshole.”

“You don’t have many friends, do you.”

“Probably more than you.”

Annie took a deep breath and sighed slowly. “She still wants to talk to me?”

“Yeah. At least have lunch with her when you get out. It’d make her happy.”

Annie hummed again.

Ymir looked away from her at the sound of footsteps out in the hall.  A few moments later, a bone-pale and wide-eyed Christa walked in, clutching a backpack to her chest.  She stopped short on seeing Annie, and then began to cry.  Mikasa came in behind her and guided her forward.  Ymir stood immediately and went to Christa, enfolding her in her arms and stroking her hair until she stopped crying.

"Sorry," Annie said.  Before she could continue, Christa shoved the backpack into Ymir’s arms, stormed over, and punched Annie hard on the shoulder.  She pulled back her arm for another, but Mikasa was on her in an instant.  Though Mikasa held her back from any more punches, she could not restrain Christa’s shouting.

"You could’ve _died_!” she said.  “You could’ve died and the last thing we ever would’ve said to each other was an argument on how to fucking _translate_ something!  Not even ‘goodbye’ or ‘have a nice day!’  Just a stupid argument!  I thought you _didn’t_ hate me!”

"I don’t," Annie said meekly, cowed by exhaustion, pain, and the weight of Christa’s fury.  She had long since forgotten the look in Christa’s eyes when she was truly angry, pushed beyond tears and given a voice to rip flesh.

"Then why do you need to nearly _die_ before you talk to me outside of work?”

Her voice failed a moment, but she drew a breath when Christa opened her mouth to continue.  Quickly, she said, “I still miss you.”

For a few seconds, Christa was too blindsided by this to speak.  Mikasa let her go when she felt no more struggle in her, and Christa went to Annie and wrapped her arms around her neck.  She whispered, “I want to be your friend again.  Annie, please, I miss you, too.  I miss you so much.”

It took a long while, but Annie reached around Christa to hold her.  She did not speak because she did not have to; Christa took her meaning and let her go to hold her face.

"I’ll tell Hanji what happened tomorrow, and then I’ll come visit you on my lunch, okay?" Christa said.

"Okay," Annie replied.

Christa let her go entirely to wipe the streaks from her own face. Once she had done this, she smiled and bumped her forehead against Annie’s. “You’re such a jerk sometimes.”

As tentatively as she had reached out, Annie smiled back. “You finally learned how to throw a punch.”

“Yeah, Ymir showed—” She stopped short.

“It’s…okay. I’m glad she did. Now you get to be the scary little blonde.”

Christa stared at her for a few seconds before bursting into giggles. She gave Annie another hug, firmer this time. When she drew back, she asked, “Are you going to be okay now?”

“You can go home. I’ll be fine.”

“Then I’ll leave you in the hands of the city’s finest.” She turned to Mikasa with a smile just for her. “Officer Ackerman, thank you so much for helping her.”

“Ackerman?” Ymir repeated. “Your first name isn’t Mikasa, is it?”

“It is,” Mikasa replied. “I’m surprised it took you so long to remember me.”

Ymir barked out a laugh. “Hey, I remember the job, not the name.”

“You do have a tattoo?” Annie asked.

To answer, Mikasa undid the buttons on her right sleeve, pushed the sleeve up, and rolled back a wrap covering her wrist. When she came close, Annie saw a tattoo that covered the underside of Mikasa’s wrist a good length up her forearm, all complex clockwork whorls and gears and fading shades of color and hue. Annie’s brows rose.

“ _You_ did this?” she asked Ymir.

“Yep. Coolest tat’ I’ve ever done. Sucks that you have to hide it.”

Mikasa put the wrap down and buttoned her sleeve. “You did a wonderful job.”

“Is there a story behind it?” Annie asked.

“Yes.”

“Can I hear that one, too?”

“Not tonight. You need to rest.” She smiled at the hint of disappointment in Annie’s face. “I’ll be keeping in touch with you about your case. But no more excitement for you tonight.”

“Don’t act like I’m a little kid.”

“I’m going to handle you with kid gloves until you’re out of here.” She took Christa by the shoulders and turned her away. “Come on, you can visit her when it’s day again.”

Christa nodded, but took a moment to go to Ymir and retrieve the backpack. She set it on the beside shelf, saying, “I put your laptop and chargers in here, too.”

“Thanks.” She lifted a hand in parting as Ymir and Christa left the room, Ymir’s arm around Christa’s shoulders. When their footsteps had faded, she looked to Mikasa. “How did she take it?”

“Better than most civilians. She didn’t get sick, at least. Get some rest, Miss Leonhardt. You’ve been through hell tonight.”

She did not require much more guidance than this. As Mikasa left the room, closing the door behind her, Annie let her head fall back on the pillow. The night was heavy on her body, the room quiet but for the heart monitoring unit and her own soft breathing. Slowly she closed her eyes, and quickly she fell asleep.

————

Christa somehow managed to visit her once a day for lunch, staying what little time she could before needing to get back to the office. They were awkward at first, blindly groping for things to talk about. For a few days, Christa told her of the reactions their coworkers had to learning Annie was in the hospital.

“Hanji mostly wanted to know if you have to have surgery,” Christa said, “not that they were worried about how long you’ll be in here.”

“I know,” Annie replied. “They’ll probably ask to see where I was cut.”

Christa giggled, but looked anxious. “You don’t need surgery, right?”

“I’ll be fine.”

They did not stray into their personal lives much. Christa would start, but always stopped talking entirely when she chanced to say Ymir’s name. She looked away when she did this, her expression twisted up between embarrassment and shame. They sat in silence that lasted for minutes at a time when this happened, as Annie could not think of what to say. Eventually, she would turn the topic by asking Christa how her bike riding was with the onset of winter. Christa happily answered this every time, even if she had answered it the day before.

Though she enjoyed Christa’s visits immensely, Annie found herself anticipating Mikasa’s return just as much. She could not pin down the precise reason why, as she was as interested in hearing her stories as she was in learning what was to become of her assailant. It was on the sixth day, as day turned into evening, that Mikasa reappeared, looking tired.

“Your doctor said you’re making good progress,” said Mikasa, sitting down in the bedside chair. “I’m glad to hear it.”

“You don’t sound it.”

Mikasa yawned and rubbed her eyes. “Sorry. It’s been a long week. I’m on my weekend after this. I wanted to give you an update before I went off-duty.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

“For better or for worse, he’s putting in for a plea bargain. He wants to get clean, or so he says.”

“What?”

“He was going to pawn off your jewelry for money to buy meth. He wants to go into rehab in prison.” Evenly, she added, “He cries every time I tell him you could’ve died.”

“I hope you tell him a lot, then. It’s a pain in the ass to be in here.”

Mikasa smiled slightly. “Are you going a little stir crazy?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t your pretty friend visiting you?”

“She is, but I’m stuck in bed.”

“You’ll likely be put on bed rest even when you leave.”

Annie raised a brow. “You’re not helping.”

Mikasa chuckled. “Sorry. I’m a spoilsport, I know.”

For a moment, she hesitated. “They’ll convict him, right?”

“I have your testimony, the written reports of the physicians that treated you, my own eye-witness account of the severity of your injury, and he’s pleading guilty. He’ll be off the streets.”

“Good,” Annie murmured.

“Your apartment complex has installed a new window, and the blood’s been cleaned up. We’ve had officers stationed near the complex in case he had accomplices.”

“That’s good, too.”

“Is there anything else you need from me right now, Miss Leonhardt?”

“You owe me two stories, remember?”

“Oh. I do, don’t I.” She sat back in the chair, crossing her legs at the knees. “Which do you want to hear first?”

“The obvious one. Why a cop?”

Mikasa considered her for a moment, and kept her gaze when she began to speak. “When I was seven, my parents and I were in a car accident. I was injured and stuck, and a policeman managed to get me out of the flipped car. He kept me from going back because he knew my parents were gone. He let me cry on his shoulder, and he rode with me in the ambulance. He didn’t leave me alone until someone came to take me home with them.”

“Formative episode, then.”

“That, and I want to help people.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m glad you were there.”

“Then I’m glad I was nearby.” She began to unbutton her right sleeve, pushing it up as she stood.

“What are you doing?”

“No one’s ever satisfied with just one look.” She rolled up the wrap and came close, extending her arm. Annie examined the tattoo closely, taking in the detail on the tiny teeth of the slim gears, admiring the fading in the colors and how they went from deep, rich shades naturally into her skin color. She did not reach to touch it.

“My mother had this on her wrist,” Mikasa explained. “It makes me feel closer to her to have this.”

“Why that specifically? Did she design it?”

“My grandmother was the artist. My mother kept everything she ever did.”

At a loss for words again, Annie said, “It’s pretty.”

“Ymir came very highly recommended.” She rolled down the wrap and buttoned her sleeve. “It was a present to myself for getting into college.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Eight years. You?”

“Nine.”

“Ever feel old when you think about it?”

“Not at all.”

Mikasa smiled, and Annie smiled slightly in return. With a quick tug on her sleeve to smooth out a wrinkle, Mikasa turned to go. “If you’re needed in court, I’ll be in touch. Try not to get that close to a burglar, if you ever cross paths with one again.” Having crossed the room, she put her hand on the doorknob. Before she turned it, she looked back. “May I ask why you made such an effort to get back your jewelry?”

“It was my mother’s.”

“I see. Then I can’t blame you. Be well, Miss Leonhardt.”

Annie, silent, watched her go. She made no effort to track her in the hallway through the windows, instead letting her head fall back to stare up at the ceiling. She wondered for a time how long it had taken to finish that tattoo. Then, with a faint sigh, she closed her eyes and tried to go to sleep. It eluded her.


	2. recovery and what comes after

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was no question in Annie's mind that she would get out of the hospital early to go home. What she did not expect was how fiercely the memory of the fight would take her when she got there. She also did not expect what would come of her on the day she toured a gym.

It took a total of sixteen days before her doctor felt comfortable enough to let Annie be discharged. He gave her detailed instructions on how to care for her injury and mind the stitches yet to be removed. She mostly concentrated on not scratching them out, itchy as they were, and nodded when she needed to. An appointment for two weeks on was scheduled for the rest of the stitches to come out.

“And no strenuous activity for another month,” he told her. “The longer you take it easy, the better.”

Annie made a flat noise, and took his prescription for painkillers before she left. Once she was outside the hospital, she looked up at the sky. It was overcast, heavy with iron-toned clouds and the smell of rain. Hidden by the front pocket of her pullover hoodie, she put a hand on her stomach. It ached to be walking again, and she did not entertain the idea of walking all the way home when rain was threatening.

She had just enough cash on hand to buy her way on the bus to downtown and the offices there. Moving slowly, she went into one building in particular and rode the elevators seven floors up. Ignoring the startled looks thrown her way, she cut through the cubicles and went toward Christa’s office. She paused at the sound of voices inside, wincing as she recognized who Christa was talking to. Still, there was nothing for it, and she stepped into the doorway and tapped her knuckles on the frame.

Christa looked away from the person sitting in the guest chair opposite her, eyes widening and jaw dropping at the sight of Annie. She shot to her feet. “Annie! You didn’t say you were getting out today!”

“I had to talk him into it.” She turned her gaze to the person sitting in the chair, spectacled and with tied back brown hair and a strange, toothy smile. “Hey, Hanji.”

“Miss Leonhardt,” said Hanji, rising from the chair and smiling even more broadly. “Christa says you didn’t need surgery.”

“It’s why I’m out already. And before you ask,” she said when Hanji opened their mouth, “no, you can’t look. It has to stay bandaged for a few more days, and I can only take off the bandages when I take a shower.”

Hanji laughed and snapped their fingers. “Maybe in a few days.” They reached out and patted Annie gently on the back. “I’m glad you’re doing all right, Annie. I was worried when Christa came to tell me where you were. So, how much longer before I have my translating duo back in action?”

“I’m on four more days of bed rest before I can come back.”

Hanji raised a brow with curiosity. “Then what are you doing here?”

Thunder rolled in from outside; they all turned to see rain and hail start to beat against the window.

“Because the bus line doesn’t go near my place and I didn’t want to walk home,” Annie said.

Hanji laughed again and gave Annie a harder pat on the back. “Fair enough.”

Christa took her coat off the back of her chair and pulled it on. “Hanji, I’ll go on lunch now, okay? It shouldn’t take long.”

“You’re fine.” They left Christa’s office with a wave, saying, “As long as you put in the hours, I don’t mind. Rest up, Miss Leonhardt!”

“Right,” she called after them.

Christa looped her arm through Annie’s, gently pulling her along. “You’re really okay to be out of the hospital?”

“I’m fine. It itches, though.” She worked words over on her tongue as they went down to the parking garage, and spoke before she opened the passenger side door. “I’m not screwing up your lunch, am I? Ymir…she likes to visit you for lunch, right?”

Christa’s brows rose. For a moment, she stammered sound. “Oh, no, no, not today. She texted me a little while ago saying Marco wanted to take her to lunch with the rest of the shop.”

“Marco?” Annie asked as she got in the car.

Christa buckled up, and waited until Annie had done the same before starting the car. “Marco Bodt. He’s the owner of the tattoo shop where she works.”

“Is he covered in tattoos?”

“He only has tribal patterns around his wrists and arms. I think he more likes to do the tattooing than getting them.” She smiled and reached out to hold Annie’s hand. “I’m so glad you’re out of the hospital already.”

Annie was briefly quiet, appreciating the warmth of Christa’s hand amidst the chill of the day. “Me too.”

“You’re going to just relax and rest for the next four days right?”

“I’m on a pretty high dose of painkillers for the next four days, so I’m probably just going to be unconscious on my couch.”

“Wow, really? Well…call or text if you need help, okay?” She giggled nervously. “But Ymir might have to come if it’s anything really physical.”

Again, she worked out her words. “That’s okay.”

Christa squeezed her hand, and they went the rest of the way in silence. She parked as close to Annie’s apartment as the complex’s lot allowed, and looked at Annie with an anxious smile.

“Do you want me to come with you?” she asked.

Annie considered this for a few seconds before saying, “No, thanks. I’ll be fine from here.”

Christa squeezed her hand again before releasing it. Annie flipped up her hood, the both of them waving as Annie got out of the car. She walked as quickly as she could through the downpour, and opened the lock on the door. Inside her apartment, it was clean, cold, and reeking of cleaning products. She stood just inside after closing and locking the door, staring at the floor.

Having the memory of the fight come back as she stared at where her bloody footprints had been was something she expected, but she did not expect it to hit her so hard. Her eyes widened; her heart rate increased sharply; she choked on her breath. She stamped down on it all and took off her shoes to go into her bedroom. Her jewelry box was sitting on the dresser, seemingly untouched, but she went through its contents piece by piece until everything was accounted for. She let out a breath and put everything away. When she had done this, she noticed something beneath the box. It was a note written in neat, flowing handwriting, and she read it to herself.

“‘I checked his pockets,’” she said. “‘Please call me and let me know if there’s anything missing. Officer M. Ackerman.’” She stared at the number written on the paper before carrying it out into the living room. Sitting on the couch, she got her phone out of her backpack and typed in the number. She hesitated before hitting “call.” The line rang three long times, and as she prepared herself to leave a message during the fourth ring, the line connected.

“ _Sina Police Department, officer Ackerman speaking_.”

“Officer? This is Annie Leonhardt. I found your note.”

“ _Oh, Miss Leonhardt! I didn’t think I’d hear from you so soon. Were you discharged today?_ ”

“Yeah, finally. I wanted to let you know that all my jewelry is here. Thank you for checking his pockets.”

“ _Not a problem. He’s in state already._ ”

“Really?”

“ _The trial was a formality, honestly. They gave him fifteen years, though I don’t know if he fully understood it with how hard he was crying the whole time._ ”

“You were there?”

“ _I was called to give testimony about you since you were in the hospital at the time, and I wanted to be able to give you an update when you got out and found my note._ ”

“Are you this diligent with all your cases, or am I special?”

Mikasa chuckled. “ _I try to follow through as much as I can on cases that need special attention, Miss Leonhardt, and given what happened to you, I thought I’d work a little harder than normal._ ”

Annie started to scratch at the bandages, but stopped herself and said, “Thank you. I really appreciate your help.”

“ _Not at all._ ”

“But should you give people your office phone number?”

“ _I don’t always, and you don’t seem like a person who’d try to harass a cop at the police station._ ”

“Granted.”

She chuckled again. “ _Feeling all right aside from physical problems?_ ”

Annie thought on the anxiety that had swamped her nerves and let her head fall against the back of the couch. “More or less,” she softly said.

Mikasa was silent a moment; Annie knew she had picked up on her voice. Not at all casually and very gently, she said, “ _There are a number of support groups in the city if you need them._ ”

Annie started to scratch again before scowling and putting her hand under her leg. “I’ll be fine, but thanks.”

“ _You will be._ ” After a pause, Mikasa asked, “ _Is there anything else I can help you will, Miss Leonhardt?_ ”

“No, I’m okay. Thank you for everything.”

“ _You’re very welcome. Be well._ ”

“You too. ‘Bye.”

“ _Goodbye._ ”

She ended the call and brought her phone forward to regard it for a time. Her reverie was shaken by the slow, steady creep of pain back into her body, and she set herself to work. Arranging her wallet, phone, and the prescription into her purse, she took an umbrella with her to her car and drove to the grocery store. Twenty minutes later saw her with a large bottle of generic vicodin and some caps of soup for the next four days.

She took the three pills as she had been instructed when she returned home, and got into the shower before they took full effect. Keeping her back to the spray, she meticulously scrubbed herself down and very carefully patted the stitched wound with the bath puff. Annie stood in the water and stared at her injury. Once or twice, she thought of picking at the stitches to see what would happen, but she ignored the urge. Angling her back, she let the water run over her shoulders and down her front to rinse off the soap. She hissed curses at the sting of the hot water on the stitches.

Fuzziness started to come into her thoughts, and so she got out of the shower to dry off and bandage herself anew. The pain was nearly taken away entirely by the time she pulled on her warmest pajamas and took the blanket from her bed. Not thinking overmuch on what she was doing, she put on the first disc of a TV box set before lying down on the couch and rolling up in the blanket.

It was a relief to finally be home. Annie pulled the blanket over her nose partly to ward off the chill, partly to take in its dryer sheet scent. She looked at the TV, not quite watching, not quite listening. She thought vaguely, wandering back and forth between topics. She thought about the last novel she’d read in German, then about Christa, and then briefly considered Christa and Ymir. She shifted her thoughts before they went past the kiss she had seen in the hospital, and eventually she landed on thinking about Mikasa.

She wasn’t sure if she had ever heard of police officers outside TV shows having tattoos, but she supposed they just hid them. Her eyes drifted away from the TV as she pondered how Mikasa had dealt with the pain of getting her tattoo. She wondered how painful it had been. She wondered if Mikasa had any more tattoos, and where they might be. After a while of remembering what she had said about Christa, she idly wondered if Mikasa was gay. Annie thought a moment about how pretty Mikasa was, and then pulled a throw pillow under her head and closed her eyes.

It was dark outside when she woke, still pouring rain and hail. She lay in the dark, unable to move for the fear gripping her. She looked to the living room window, and untangled herself from the blanket to double-check that it was unbroken and locked tight. The frigid temperature of the room steadied her somewhat, and she kept herself from glancing over her shoulder while she went to turn on the heat and a few lights.

Annie thought briefly of following Christa’s admonition to stay in touch if she needed anything, and then thought better of it. She made herself soup and ate it after putting on the second disc of her show. As she was about to get off the couch to clean up, her phone rang. The screen showed Christa’s name, and she answered on the third ring.

“ _Hey!_ ” said Christa. “ _You’re finally awake!_ ”

“What?”

“ _You didn’t answer your phone a couple hours ago, so I figured you were asleep. I just wanted to see how you were doing._ ”

Annie smiled slightly. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“ _Sure I did. Are you weird on pain meds?_ ”

“Just sleepy, honestly. I’ll take more before I go to bed to get through the night.”

“ _Sleep in really late, okay?_ ”

“You know that’s what I do if I have the opportunity.”

Christa giggled. “ _I know, I know. It was always so hard to get you out of bed on the weekends. You haven’t changed about that, have you?_ ”

“No, you’d still have to physically drag me out of bed.”

“ _Good. Sleep will help you._ ”

Annie let out a breath of laughter. “I see you’re still a tiny mother hen.”

“ _I can’t help it! You’re hurt and I worry about you when you’re hurt._ ”

“I’ll be okay, I promise. I should be back to work soon.”

“ _Hanji won’t mind if you’re out a little longer. I asked them._ ”

She rolled the material of the blanket in her fingers before saying, “I miss working with you properly.”

Christa was quiet a long while. When she spoke again, Annie could tell she was smiling. “ _I miss it, too. I need someone to check my grammar on what we send back overseas._ ”

“And to make sure you don’t make the English business statements flowery.”

“ _I like things to not be so dry. And I’m doing much better and you know it._ ”

“I do. Thank you for checking on me.”

“ _You’re welcome. Have you already had dinner?_ ”

“Okay, you don’t need to check up on me _this_ much.”

Christa laughed. “ _I was just curious! You should eat and then go to bed._ ”

“Bed sounds nicer than the couch.”

“ _It always is. Go on, go to bed. We can talk more later._ ”

“Yeah,” Annie murmured, “we can.”

“ _We will. Have a good night, Annie._ ”

“You too, Christa.” She stopped herself from saying what still came naturally, instead saying, “‘Bye.”

“ _‘Bye._ ”

The call ended, and Annie took a deep breath. Her chest did not ache as much as she expected it to; she smiled out of relief. It was easy to clean the kitchen and store the leftover soup in the fridge, and it was infinitely easier to drag the blanket back into the bedroom and roll up in it on the bed after taking more medicine. She lay on her back, forbidden from sleeping in any other position, and listened to the noise of the weather past her heavy drapes. It was lulling, even the rolling thunder, and she closed her eyes as the vicodin took effect.

Still, she jerked awake some hours later to a great crash of thunder and lightning. A part of her screamed that the window had been broken and someone had come inside. Annie could not help but to listen, and she squirmed to the edge of the bed. Gingerly, she sat up and stared at her open bedroom door. That panicked voice inside her insisted that someone was coming for her. Annie thought about hiding in some way, and this thought brought her away from panic. Sneering at her anxiety, she stood up, pulling the blanket around her shoulder like a cape. She shuffled out into the living room and flicked on a light. No one was there; the window was whole.

Very slowly, the adrenaline in her veins began to wash away. She sat down on the couch, eventually arranging herself on her back with the blanket wrapped tight around her. It was still loud with rain and hail, and she wondered if it would start snowing so early in the year. She did not like the notion of snow so soon when she was unable to do her evening runs in the first place.

Annie drew a deep breath and stared at the far wall, watching the patterns the rain made in the light coming through the blinds. It was galling, she had decided in the hospital, for her reaction time to be so slow to get her so badly hurt. It was pathetic that it had taken such an effort on her part to take him down. It was worse that she was waking in fear now from thunder and lightning, which she had long loved.

As she fell back asleep, she came to a decision made abruptly, as most she made were. She managed to recall it when she woke in pain and with a crick in her neck well after the sun had risen.

————

“My fitness club?” Christa asked.

“You said you go to a club when the weather’s too bad to ride anymore,” Annie replied. “Would you recommend it?”

“Yes! It’s pretty big and it offers a lot of classes, if you’re interested.”

“Any classes on boxing?”

Christa thought, leaning back in her chair and drumming her fingers on her thighs. “I don’t think so, but I _know_ we have a bunch of martial arts classes. Oh, and I think there’s some women’s only martial arts classes.”

“And it has everything else a gym usually has?”

“Yep.” She frowned. “There is no way you’re going to the gym when this is your first day back from bed rest.”

“No, not for another month,” Annie said.

“I don’t think you could sound any _less_ like you’ll do what your doctor said.”

“You know I will. I just want to go and see it for myself.”

“Do you want to follow me there after work?”

Her brows rose slightly. “Weren’t you just about to yell at me for wanting to go?”

“I figure if I’m there to yell at you before you _really_ do something stupid, it’ll let you see if you want to go there when you’re better.” She paused, and then smiled. “I’ll show you around tonight on one condition.”

“What?”

“Please have lunch with me?”

Annie went quiet. She looked at Christa, who looked back hopefully. It had been one thing to talk to her at the hospital or over the phone while she was at home. Something like anxiety began to clot in her throat. She swallowed hard at the sight of dejection pulling Christa’s shoulders down and said, “Where do you want to go?”

Christa immediately brightened. “Erm, just downstairs? It’s raining again.”

“Sure.”

“But take it easy and remember to take a break!”

Annie smirked and stood up from the guest chair. “All right, all right. I’ll remember today.”

Christa giggled. “Liar.”

She waved briefly as she left Christa’s office. A few paces away was her own, and she stepped inside. To her surprise, a few cards were waiting for her on her desk, propped open and filled with signatures from their entire floor. She read the brief messages, smirking again at one that said her scary face had been mixed. After closing them, she set them to one side and signed in on her computer. Unsurprisingly, her email inbox was jammed full of messages. She read through them and moved some into different folders to address later.

More than once, she sent an IM to Christa to see where certain documents were in translation, where she needed to devote her energy. Christa had done what she could while she was away, but there was only so much to be done with one person facing the workload of two. Taking a break in the face of so much to catch up on seemed inappropriate, but she grew dim and exhausted after two hours, and closed her door to be alone and still for a time.

Christa came to fetch her for lunch some time later, and her brows came together at the sight of Annie so pale. She went to Annie, putting a hand on her back.

“Are you sure you should be at work yet?” she asked.

“I just need to take it easy.”

“And probably take something for the pain.”

“I will, stop worrying.” She rose from her chair, taking her purse with her, and they went down to the first floor of the building and the cafeteria there. They bought their food and found an empty, small table. Christa waited until Annie had taken a vicodin before picking up her sandwich.

Annie toyed with her own sandwich a moment. “Ymir told me something in the hospital.”

Christa, looking nervous, swallowed what was in her mouth. “What did she say?”

“That…you still like me a little.” At Christa growing even more uncomfortable, she went on. “I’m not asking to try and break you two up. I just want to know if it’s true.”

Christa looked down a moment before looking Annie in the eye. “I do. But…I don’t think we could be together anymore.”

“I know.” She looked away, blinked, and aimed her eyes down. “Does—never mind.”

“No, you can ask.”

“I wanted to know if Ymir—if she makes you happy.”

Christa startled, eyes widening. “You—we don’t have to talk about her. I know she makes you uncomfortable.”

She looked at Christa and said, “Not having you in my life makes me more uncomfortable. I know you want to talk about her. It’s okay.”

Christa said nothing for a time. She smiled nervously. “I guess me yelling at you made you listen, huh?”

“It tends to. That and you hit me really hard.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“It’s fine. It was the least of my worries that night. So. Did you really meet because she did a tattoo for you?”

Christa blushed. “Oh my God, did she actually tell you that?”

“Did she lie?”

“No, but I didn’t think she’d _tell_ you that!”

“What the hell, you really have a tattoo?”

“Well, yes.” She thought. “I guess if we start going to the same gym I could show you in the locker room.”

“It _is_ on your back?”

“Yeah. Did she tell you what it is?”

“Flowers.”

“Yep!” She giggled at the way Annie stared, lips slightly parted and one brow raised. “Ymir made it tasteful, don’t worry. I think she liked me from the start, so she wouldn’t have given me a tramp stamp.”

Annie blinked hard twice. “God, I just can’t imagine you with a huge tattoo on your back.”

“Pretty women can get tattoos. What about that nice police officer?”

“I still have trouble with her and her tattoo.” She sat back, and suddenly found she had to smile. “So she tattooed your back and you started dating. What made you interested in her?”

“Well,” Christa said, starting to blush again, “Ymir has this thing that she does when she does detail work. She…she wears reading glasses, and I thought it was so charming.”

Annie was silent. Then, she sputtered with laughter. “That’s it?”

“No, I mean—she’s so _focused_ when she does a tattoo. And she’s a really wonderful artist! You have to be if you do tattoos. She showed me some of her original designs and they’re so beautiful. And she’s nothing like anyone I’ve dated before. I was incredibly happy when she asked me out. She was really nervous and completely adorable.”

“I didn’t know you went for dorks.”

“Hey, be nice!”

Annie held up her hands in surrender.

Christa looked at Annie’s untouched food. “Oh, but eat something. You need food for your medicine to work best, right?”

She shrugged, but began to eat nevertheless. Christa followed suite, and they finished around the same time. In the large pause that followed, Annie took a breath. “She makes you happy, then?”

“She does.”

Annie, to her own surprise, smiled again. “Then I’m happy, too.”

Christa stared at her before standing up. She rounded the table, bent slightly, and gently kissed Annie on the cheek. Wrapping her arms around Annie, she whispered in her ear, “Thank you.”

Annie reached up and patted her on the back. “I hope this means you’ll take me with you tonight.”

Laughing, Christa let Annie go to bump their heads together. “Yes, you jerk, we can go.”

————

What struck Annie first was the scent. It did not smell overmuch of sweat, unlike the on-campus gym she had frequented in college. As Christa led her to the front desk for a visitor’s pass, her eyes wandered. Not too far off, past the rows of stationary bikes, treadmills, and elliptical machines, she could see the beginnings of a rock climbing wall. Doors with windows littered the hallways Christa guided her through; Annie could see classes being taught in some of the rooms.

Going up a flight of stairs left Annie standing still and grimacing for a minute or two as Christa rubbed her back. From there they went to above a large pool, which Christa said was heated. A room with glass walls hid a large spa off in one corner, where she could see a cluster of adults relaxing. More cardio machines were on the second floor along with, to Annie’s pleasure, a sparring ring. Downstairs in the back were weights, free and on machines.

“What do you think?” Christa asked as they came to a large bulletin board with class listings.

“I think I like it,” replied Annie. “Though I wish they had a class on boxing.”

Christa turned to look at the class listings. “Well, the last women-only martial arts class of the day starts in five minutes. We can watch for a little while to see if you’d like it.”

Annie thought a moment, and then shrugged. “It could be interesting.”

Christa smiled and took Annie by the arm, leading her back down the halls to one room in particular tucked away in the corner. They went inside, finding themselves alone but for a woman sitting on the floor with her back to them.

“Excuse me,” said Christa. “I’m showing my friend around and she wants to see if she’d like this class. Can we sit in for a while?”

The woman unfolded herself neatly, letting her arms come down to hang at her sides. Annie stared at the intricate tattoo on her right wrist, eyes snapping up to the woman’s face as she turned. She and Mikasa stared at each other, eyes wide with shock.

“Miss Leonhardt?” Mikasa said. “Why are you at a gym already? You’ll hurt yourself.”

“I’m not going to exercise for another month,” Annie said. “I’m just figuring out how I want to go about it.” She thought. “Are you the instructor?”

“I am.”

“Aren’t you busy being a policewoman?”

“I have Fridays and Saturdays off to teach a few women-only classes on Friday.”

“That’s kind of you,” Christa said. “I’d be nervous to take a martial arts class with a bunch of guys.”

“Would you be joining Miss Leonhardt?” Mikasa asked.

“I’m not sure. I’m not even sure Annie wants to take this class.”

Mikasa looked at Annie with a slight smile. “I would’ve thought boxing is your exercise of choice.”

“The only boxing gym I’ve been able to find is in Maria, and it’s on the farthest side of the city. I think I could try martial arts.”

“I’d be very interested to see what kind of attitude you bring to my class.” She looked away as the door opened and a few women came in. Gesturing with her right hand, she said, “Here, you can sit on these,” and led them to thick, folded-up mats. She went to the front of the room to wait as more women came in, setting their towels and shoes and water bottles along the walls. They formed an ill-shaped arch around Mikasa, throwing glances at Annie and Christa. Christa waved at them, smiling so brightly that the women smiled back.

“I see all of you have noticed we have a couple of guests,” said Mikasa a while after the last woman had come in. “They’re just here to see if they want to join the class after recovering from injuries. Don’t mind them.” She clapped her hands once, loud enough to make Annie startle, and the women, numbering twenty, fell into five rows, four deep. One woman giggled; the others chuckled.

Mikasa smiled. “You’re getting very good at lining up. Now. Is there more than enough room between you and your neighbors?”

“Yes, sensei,” was the chorus response.

“Good. Thirty jumping jacks, please.” She began to pace around them as they did as she instructed. When they had finished, she said, “On the floor for thirty push-ups, please. On-the-knee variation is okay.” She waited patiently for them to finish and stand back up. “Stretch out your legs and core. We’re going to be focusing on kicks today.”

There was a low, soft eagerness that pervaded the atmosphere, making Annie raise a brow. She looked to Christa, who only shrugged. The stretching, formless and unguided, went on for five minutes before Mikasa lifted her hands. She gestured; the women fell out of line to give her space. Mikasa did her own stretches, rocking from heel to toe in long extensions of her legs side to side. She sank low, nearly touching her knees to the mats and holding herself in the stretch for ten to fifteen seconds at a time.

“Who remembers what I did last week?” she asked.

“You were continuing your long form,” said one woman. “It didn’t seem to have many kicks in it, sensei.”

“There are things I can focus on from other forms.” She straightened up and bent so far backward that she put her hands on the floor. Seemingly without effort, she lifted her feet and aligned her body in a perfect handstand. Smoothly, she bent her arms and tucked in her head, curving her spine to roll out until her hips were on the floor. As she stood up, another woman laughed.

“You’re showing off again,” she said.

“I like to show off for guests,” Mikasa replied. “It makes them more inclined to join the class.” She crossed to the far end of the room. Annie sat forward slightly. For a few moments longer, Mikasa stretched her legs further, holding her knees to her chest one after the other before grasping her ankles one by one and pulling them back and up. This done, she began to move.

Her right leg swung up first, foot hitting her right hand, held out above shoulder height. With her hand still extended, she dropped her leg and swung up her left leg in an arc that brought her ankle to her palm. She switched easily, reaching out with her left to bring her right ankle into it. Planting her right foot solidly, she lashed out with her left foot, striking the air with the side of her foot high, middle, and low.

Mikasa put down her left, but only for an instant. She launched herself forward and off the mat entirely, right knee up and high. She landed in a crouch, sweeping her left along the floor with such force that it turned her body and gave her speed enough to bring her right leg around to do the same. She straightened her legs so abruptly and so hard that she shot off the mat. When she landed again, she brought her right leg up and about, hooking her foot and dragging it down. She twisted, and kicked her left and right so blindingly fast one after another that her feet left the floor behind.

Upon landing, she went still and exhaled. The women clapped at this, and Christa joined in. Annie simply stared, steadfastly keeping her mouth shut. She did not listen to what Mikasa said to the women after that, nor did she pay attention while the women began to practice. She watched Mikasa as she went round the room, correcting motions or giving advice. All Annie could think of was the ease with which Mikasa had moved, the strength inherent in her. Christa soon noticed her staring.

“That was cool, wasn’t it?” Christa asked in a low voice. “I bet you could learn it all in a heartbeat.”

Annie hummed softly.

“What’s wrong? Do you not like the class?”

“No, the class is fine.” She smiled, slow and dark. “I want to pound her into the floor.”

“ _What_?”

“I haven’t sparred with anyone since college, and it’s all I’ve wanted to do for years. She’ll be able to keep up with me.”

“Annie, for heaven’s sake, you can’t even walk up a flight of stairs. You’re not fighting anyone.”

“Give me two months. I’ll be able to fight.”

Christa frowned at her, eventually sighing. “You’re ridiculous. She’s been nothing but kind and you want to beat her up?”

“No, I want to fight. There’s a difference.”

“Well, you better ask her if that’s okay.” She shook her head. “I don’t see how it _would_ be.”

“You never know. She might want a challenge.”

“Annie, have I ever mentioned that you’re kind of weird?”

Annie’s smile softened. “You like to when we were together. I thought you liked that about me.”

Christa gave up and smiled slightly. “I still do. I just didn’t think you wanted to beat people up this much.”

“Fight them. It’s different.”

Shaking her head with a helpless smile, she said, “If you say so. Are you going to ask her tonight?”

“No, not yet.”

“You’re hopeless,” Christa said, nothing but fond.

They spent the rest of the class in silence, Annie closely examining every moment Mikasa provided examples to her students. She was painfully eager for her month of waiting to be over. She took Christa’s help in getting to her feet when women began to leave, going to Mikasa as she waved to the last woman to go.

“Interested in my class, Miss Leonhardt?” Mikasa asked.

“Completely,” said Annie. “You can expect to see me in a month.”

“Excellent. I look forward to it.”

They went their separate ways then, Mikasa staying behind to work out on her own while Annie and Christa went to their cars. When she returned home, Annie found she was more excited than she had been for months. She could not stop smiling at the prospect of fighting Mikasa. Though she tried to go to sleep, thinking of how best to knock Mikasa to the floor kept her awake and looking at the ceiling. The only thing that eventually sent her to sleep was realizing that she would heal faster and more thoroughly if she rested well for the next month.

Annie pulled the blanket up to her nose to hide her smile in it. Barely able to stand the wait, she closed her eyes and fell asleep to thoughts of fighting.

————

She had never been so stymied by her own body when she started to exercise a month later. Though she took care to do very few exercises directly involving her stomach for the first week, every last thing she did left her exhausted and aching. Even her jogs, fifteen minutes at the most, made her curse quietly. When it came to be Friday evening, she found herself anxious about Mikasa’s class and if she would be able to do anything at all.

Annie went to the room early, partly in the hope that she could be alone to stretch, and partly in the hope that Mikasa would be there to talk to. The second situation was true: she found Mikasa sitting with her back to the door. She did as the women had done when she visited, taking off her shoes and putting them, her towel, and her water bottle against a wall. She turned as Mikasa got to her feet.

“Exactly a month,” Mikasa said. “You’re very eager, Miss Leonhardt.”

“I got sick of lying in bed all the time.”

“I thought you might be here today, so I’ll go through some slower forms. Tai chi should work.”

“Wasn’t that kung fu you were doing when I was here before?”

“It was, more or less. I know various forms from a lot of martial arts.”

“Jack of all trades, master of none?”

“Black belt in karate, at least. Sometimes it’s better to throw things together to teach self-defense.”

“Figures that’s what this really is.”

“Sometimes you have to make it sound more appealing.” She raised a brow and smiled. “I’ll go easy on you, but shouldn’t you stretch?”

“Right,” Annie mumbled. She sank to the floor to stretch her legs out at an angle with her fingers on the bottom of her foot. When she looked up, she found Mikasa politely looking the other way. She asked, “Do you teach your classes because you’re a cop?”

“Yes. I’ve seen too many women assaulted and unable to defend themselves. I’d like to give them the same sort of skills and confidence _you_ have, but maybe not the recklessness.”

Annie paused in stretching to look at Mikasa’s back. “You don’t use me as an example, do you?”

“Without your actual name, I do. You’re a very good example. Very petite, but knowing where and how to hit to knock out a much larger opponent. I couldn’t ask for a better example for women, really.”

“I’m not that little.”

“I could bench press you.”

She stopped dead to stare at Mikasa. “Excuse me?”

Mikasa looked over her shoulder with a smile that bordered on a grin. “I like to bet people I can bench press them. You’d be easy.”

Annie gaped and did not care that she did so. “You’re serious.”

“Completely.”

“And you like to _bet_ that you can bench press people. What do I get if you can’t bench press me?”

“What do you want?”

Annie did not hesitate in saying, “A sparring match with you.”

Mikasa raised a brow. “Now?”

“In another month.” When Mikasa did not respond, she said, “You asked what I want, and I want to fight you. If you give me another month, I’ll be able to go toe-to-toe with you.” She bristled at the look of pleasant disbelief on Mikasa’s face. “What makes you think I can’t put you on the floor? You’re the one who said I was a perfect example on how to fight.”

“You’re hinging this on a bet I know I’ll win. Wouldn’t you like a better wager?”

“What’s one that I would win so we could fight?”

Mikasa sighed. “You’re really serious.”

“As you are about bench pressing me.”

“Miss Leonhardt, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Why are you so sure you can?” She rose to her feet and crossed her arms. “If you let me fight you in a month, then I’ll let you show off and bench press me.” Mikasa said nothing; Annie sighed. She asked, “Please? I want a chance to spar with someone who actually knows what they’re doing.”

Mikasa chewed on the inside of her cheek. “Make it a month and a half and we’ll get in the ring.”

Annie held off from grinning. “Giving me more time to get ready?”

“To keep healing.” She glanced away as women began to come into the room. “But I expect you to stay late so I can bench press you.”

This implicit promise was one that Annie mostly forgot about during the class. It was easy as Mikasa had said it would be, all slow-moving forms and deep breathing. At a certain point, Mikasa took her, the twenty-first student, as her own partner in an exercise she called “pushing hands.” It was circuitous motion, turning your partner’s hands away while pushing at them and being deflected in turn. Annie chose to not push her luck by pushing harder than Mikasa did.

Somehow, despite the slowness of everything and how gently Mikasa had pushed her, Annie found herself wiping off a fine sheen of sweat from her exposed skin at the end of the class. The women thanked Mikasa as they left, and Annie almost followed their lead before remembering. She looked to Mikasa, who was putting on her shoes.

“Come on,” said Mikasa.  “There shouldn’t be many people in the weight room right now.”

“Worried we’ll get in trouble?”

“A little.  It’s dangerous for most people to do this.” She led them out of the room, Annie at her side.

“What, but not for you?” Annie asked.

“Not with someone as little as you.”

“When it turns out you’re full of it, I’m going to laugh at you.”

Mikasa only smiled as they entered the weight room.  True to her word, there was almost no one there.  She brought Annie to a bench press off to the side, and then stepped back and turned aside.  She rose up on her toes and fell onto her outstretched hands to do five slow push-ups, holding herself low for long periods of time.  After getting up, she lay out on the bench.

“Here’s what you do,” Mikasa said, putting her hands at her shoulders.  “Lie right across my chest with your spine in my hands, and curl your legs up to your chest.”

Annie stared.  “Wow, you’re really going to try this?”

“Miss Leonhardt, I’ve bench pressed many of my fellow officers, and most of them weigh at least twice as much as you.  Just lie on my chest, unless you’re scared.”

She scowled at Mikasa, and turned around neatly to spite her.  Feeling more than a little foolish, she lay back on Mikasa and pulled her legs up.  “Like this?”

Mikasa shifted her hands slightly.  “Like that.  Now, don’t freak out or we will get in trouble.”

Annie opened her mouth to retort, but choked on her words as Mikasa, with all the ease in the world, pressed her straight up.  She froze stiff as Mikasa brought her down, and then lifted her fifteen times more.

“Want me to keep going?” Mikasa asked, slightly strained.

“I think you proved your point,” Annie said, just as strained.  “Put me down.”

Mikasa chuckled, brought her down, and pushed up with the hand closest to Annie’s head to bring Annie upright.  Annie straightened out her legs and stood, stepping away to turn and gape at Mikasa as she sat up.

“You fucking bench pressed me,” Annie said dimly.

Mikasa grinned properly and said, “You weigh, what, one-ten, one-fifteen?  I can bench press two-forty.”

“What.”  She shook herself out of shock.  “ _What_?”

“Station record for women.  No one wants to challenge it.”

“Maybe because that is the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard in my life.”

“Want me to prove that, too?”

“And risk you hurting yourself before our fight?  No way.”

Surprise took the grin from Mikasa’s face.  “You still want to fight me knowing that I can bench press that much weight?”

“Yes.”

“Miss Leonhardt, I—”

“Annie.”

“What?”

“Stop calling me ‘Miss Leonhardt.’  I still want to fight you.”

“I don’t want to hurt you, and that’s a very real possibility for anyone who fights me.”

“So what?  I could hurt you just as easily.”

“Miss—Annie.  I don’t think you could knock me to the floor.”

“There’s only one way to find out.  Fight me like you said you would.  Or are _you_ scared?”

Mikasa frowned at her.  “Why are you so set on this?”

“Because no one wants to fight a little blonde woman and I want a real opponent.”

For a long while, Mikasa was silent.  She tapped her thumbs on her knees, looking at the floor.  Her lips suddenly twitched into a slight smile; she looked up.  “No one has challenged me to a fight in years.  I scare everyone off.”

“Then I’m sure you want a challenge, too.”  She stepped closer, holding out her hand.  “Do we have a deal, officer?”

“Call me Mikasa.”  She stood up and clasped Annie’s hand.  “Keep coming to my class, and we’ll fight in six weeks.”

Annie smirked.  “I’ll look forward to it.”

————

Over the next six weeks, Annie devoted herself to getting into better shape than she had been before the break-in. All her exercises were done in calculation, ranging from cardio to weight training to a level and amount of shadowboxing that drove others away as much as it attracted onlookers. She kept the hood to her short sleeved jacket up to ignore other gym-goers, playing music loudly enough to drown out her breathing.

Christa was horrified that Mikasa had taken Annie up on her request, and was unwilling to watch the fight or listen to anything regarding its lead up. Annie felt a small, undefined pang at learning this, unsure if she wanted Christa to come in the first place. She kept focused, and went to Mikasa’s class on Friday, the first of December, with eagerness driving her on.

In Mikasa was the same eagerness, if her smile and energetic lesson could be trusted. They met each other’s eyes repeatedly; Annie almost wanted her to cut the lesson short. She kept her patience and the lesson ended in its own time. Mikasa bade her students farewell, and then went immediately to her towel and water bottle. Annie, already back in her sneakers, waited and watched as Mikasa pulled on a pair of shoes with toes.

“I’ve never actually seen those before,” Annie said.

“They’re very comfortable. I prefer them for running, and I thought they’d work in a fight.” She bounced onto her feet, tucking her towel and water under one arm. “Come on.”

Annie followed her out and up to the second floor. No one was in the sparring ring when they arrived, and they took the foam helmets and gloves hanging on hooks by a step into the ring.

“How do we tell who wins?” Annie asked.

“Best of three downs?”

“Fine by me.” They donned their gear and climbed into the ring. They took care to check the snugness of their gloves; Annie pulled her hair, up in a ponytail, through the open back of her helmet. They circled each other lazily as they did this, unable to restrain their small smiles. Without a signal, they fell into stances, Annie with her arms up and ready to guard and Mikasa with her hands and feet staggered. Still they circled each other, and Annie waited very patiently for Mikasa to make the first move.

It came with Mikasa snapping out her right leg, aimed for Annie’s hip. Annie shot forward and into range for an uppercut, driving her fist into Mikasa’s gut. It was immensely similar to punching a sandbag. Mikasa barely seemed to notice, and struck with her left knee. Annie brought down her arm to block, but Mikasa’s knee hit her so hard she was lifted off her feet and pushed to the side. She hit the mat on her feet and put distance between them. The blow had mostly landed on her upper arm, and she briefly took note of the pain before dashing back in.

Bravado nearly cost her as Mikasa aimed a right hook at her jaw. She barely ducked in time, feeling Mikasa’s fist scrape along the helmet. Three punches were what she delivered to Mikasa’s torso, two to her ribs and one to her sandbag gut. She lingered too long to see if it had any effect; Mikasa grabbed her by the elbows, hooked her leg around one of Annie’s, and twisted her about. It sent Annie spinning to the mat, landing on her front hard enough to drive the air from her lungs.

“One-nothing,” Mikasa said lightly.

Annie coughed as she stood back up. She regarded Mikasa silently.

“Give up?” Mikasa asked.

“That was one down. You’re not getting off that easy.” She brought her fists back up.

Mikasa looked at her as though she was unsure if Annie was real. She raised her hands. Again, Annie was patient, and she angled her elbows steadily away from her stomach as though relaxing her guard. When Mikasa’s shoulders twitched, she forced herself to not smile. A second later, Mikasa moved in. Her right fist came up from below toward Annie’s exposed stomach, but Mikasa stopped herself at the last moment. Her knuckles came to rest on Annie’s stomach; she looked horrified.

Annie slipped to the side, reaching up with her right hand to clamp down on Mikasa’s mouth past the helmet. Before Mikasa could react, Annie swung back her right leg and kicked Mikasa’s legs out from beneath her as she shoved Mikasa backward by the face. Mikasa spun over, shoulders slamming to the mat as her legs came up and over her head. Annie stepped away to take in the sight of Mikasa with her shoulders on the mat and her toes resting there as well.

“One-one,” Annie said.

For a few moments, Mikasa did not move. As Annie was about to go to her in case she had been knocked out, she put her hands on the mat and did a kip-up to get back to her feet. She stared at Annie, eyes narrow and brows low.

“I told you I know how to box _and_ fight. I didn’t say I was only going to box.”

Mikasa said nothing, only exhaling slowly and bringing up her fists. Annie raised her own, keeping in a tighter guard. They both put their right foot forward, drawing back when they noticed the other. Slowly they circled each other, creeping closer. Annie felt the urge to hang back, aware of Mikasa’s much longer reach. The choice was taken from her when Mikasa advanced, and she stepped in to meet her. She did what she could to block or deflect Mikasa’s attacks, turning her shoulders to let hard punches glance off them or bringing up her legs to bear the force of Mikasa’s kicks.

More than anything, she wanted Mikasa on the ground again. Her heart had jumped into her throat with glee to see her laid out. She blocked and dodged and bided her time. She snuck in a good dozen shots each to Mikasa’s stomach and ribs, but they did not seem to slow her down. When the moment seemed right, she brought her right elbow up to strike at Mikasa’s jaw. Her intent was to bring in her leg to sweep Mikasa’s feet out while her attention was diverted.

What happened was that Mikasa dodged her kick by coming to one side, clasping Annie by the face, and kicking her legs out from beneath her while shoving her backward. Annie flipped over, hitting the mat hard on her shoulders while her feet came over her head.

“Two-one,” said Mikasa. “I win.”

Annie neither moved nor spoke. Mikasa went to her, and Annie twisted her hips to swing her legs around and sweep Mikasa’s feet out. She shot on top of Mikasa the moment she was on her back, pinning her arms by the wrists and keeping her knees wedged against Mikasa’s ribs.

“Two-two,” Annie replied. “I’m a sore loser.”

“You also beat the hell out of my ribs, so please get off.”

“Promise we can keep doing this and I will.”

Mikasa stared at her. Then, she smiled. “Like fighting me that much?”

“I do, actually. Don’t you?”

“You’re the first person to down me in years. I’m interested. But please get off.”

Annie, minding Mikasa’s sides, stood up. After a moment, she offered Mikasa her hand to get up. Mikasa took the help, sighing as she sat up. When she was on her feet, she lifted her t-shirt. Annie could see bruises already forming on her stomach and sides.

“What did you do for six weeks, just punch holes in walls?” Mikasa asked.

Annie, suddenly dry-mouthed at the sight of Mikasa’s absurdly defined abs, swallowed quickly and replied, “Hitting you is as good as hitting a wall. Do you spend all your free time doing crunches?”

Mikasa chuckled. “I think I detect a hint of jealousy.”

“Maybe I’ll ask for your methods once I can do more than fifteen sit-ups at a time.”

Pulling off her helmet, Mikasa said, “Let’s not take up the ring while we talk. Come on.” She led Annie out of the ring, and they wiped down the gloves and helmets before hanging them back up. As they moved away from the ring, Annie became aware of how out of breath she was, how the world was still faintly tilted after her second down, how flushed her face was. They went to an empty corner of the room, Annie sitting against a wall while Mikasa stretched out on her back.

“I’m going to be so sore tomorrow,” Mikasa groaned.

“Told you I could give just as much as you.”

“Serves me right for doubting you.” She looked at Annie. “Did your father teach you that kick?”

“He taught me everything I know.”

“Is he military?”

Annie looked away, said, “ _Was_ ,” and took a drink of her water.

Mikasa waited until she had lowered her bottle before speaking again. Awkwardly, she said, “Your friend said you had argued over how to translate something. Are you a military translator?”

Annie snorted. “Not a chance. Business.”

“What language?”

“German. That’s what my degree is in.”

“German seems so bizarre to me.”

“It’s what English is mainly derived from. I understand it better than Spanish, at least.”

“I’m the opposite. Spanish is easy, German is bizarre.”

“Did you study in school?”

Mikasa sat up and moved to sit beside Annie. “No, my grandmother’s neighborhood is predominantly hispanic. When I started to live with her, I had to learn quickly if I wanted to make friends. It helps me in my job, so I’m glad. And I picked up the foulest language from older kids, so I can always call a perp out if they start cursing at me in Spanish.”

Annie smirked. “I’m sure they don’t expect a pretty Asian woman in the inner city to know anything more than some garbled English and what they think is Chinese.”

“True. I’ve had people like that as perps and normal citizens. I try not to speak in Japanese to anyone unless I know them.”

She regarded Mikasa with a faint frown and a raised brow. “You know _Japanese_ and you’re telling me German is bizarre?”

“My mother and I spoke in Japanese when I was little, so it was never weird to me.”

Annie smirked again and set her head back against the wall. “Okay, fair enough.” After a moment of thinking, she looked at Mikasa from the corner of her eye. “Can you read and write, too?”

“I can.”

“How would you write my name?”

“Annie Leonhardt?”

“Yeah.”

Mikasa thought. She smiled, and then reached to take one of Annie’s hands. Ignoring Annie’s stammered protests, she wrote a character in her palm: one horizontal line that hooked down at the right and a faintly curved vertical line down from the center of the horizontal line. She said, “Ah.”

“What?”

“That’s the katakana character for the sound ‘ah.’” She then wrote two horizontal lines, the bottom longer than the top. “Ni. A-ni.” She then straightened Annie’s arm and wrote characters all the way to to her short sleeve. “Re-o-n-ha-to. Annie Leonhardt.”

How long it had been since someone other than Christa had casually touched her, Annie was unsure. She took back her arm when Mikasa let her go, staring at her skin. The lines Mikasa had traced on her tingled slightly. She put the thumb of her other hand into the palm Mikasa had written in, rubbing slowly. When she looked at Mikasa, uncertain, Mikasa smiled again and looked sheepish.

“Sorry,” she said. “I do that.”

“Randomly grab people to write on them?”

“Yeah. Just be happy I don’t have a pen, because then I really would’ve written on you.”

The look of embarrassment on Mikasa’s face grew so profound that Annie snickered. “Officer, are you at this much of a loss with everyone when you’re off-duty, or am I special?”

“You’re special,” Mikasa said quietly.

Annie’s eyes widened; her brows rose. “Oh.”

Mikasa glanced at her, saw the shock on her face, and cleared her throat. “I apologize for being so forward, Miss Leonhardt, I’ll—”

“I told you to call me ‘Annie,’” she said.

“Sorry, Annie.” She cleared her throat again. “I’ll just—”

“Would you give me a chance to respond?”

“Sorry.”

“Christ, I wouldn’t have pegged you to be nervous about something like this.”

“We get warned on our first day to not get emotionally involved with any of our cases. I’m not very good at that, and you’re right at the top of the list of ‘cases I should not be romantically interested in.’”

“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or an insult.”

Mikasa’s smile turned anxious. “It’s a compliment, I promise.”

Annie watched her for a moment. She was not sure what to make of her and her nervous smile. It was a lovely smile, sweet and small. It reminded her of how gentle she had been upon arriving at her apartment. A timid touch to the hand she had put on the floor between them made her look down. The tips of Mikasa’s fingers were resting on her pinky.

“This seems a little sudden,” Annie said, looking at their hands. “Have you been thinking about this a lot?”

“Ever since you first came to my class. I didn’t think you’d get back on your feet as fast as you have.”

“You’re so impressed that you fell for me?”

“I think you’re remarkable and I want to get to know you better.” She rubbed Annie’s knuckle. “Would you like to get coffee tomorrow?”

Annie looked up to Mikasa’s face. She was blushing faintly. It made Annie more aware of the soft red luster in Mikasa’s lips. She wondered if they were soft, or if they were firm. Again, she looked at their hands. Mikasa’s fingers were longer than her own, unsurprisingly. Slowly, she turned her hand over to tap her thumb to the knuckle of Mikasa’s middle finger.

“Coffee sounds good,” she said, smiling a little.

Relief mixed with happiness on Mikasa’s face. “There’s a nice place on the corner of north eighteenth and James that we could go to. I go every morning.”

“Is it a cop hangout?”

“No, it’s just near my place. How does nine-thirty sound?”

“Fine by me.” She raised a brow when Mikasa rose to her feet. “Off to go exercise some more?”

“I don’t feel like working out with a beat-up core.” She offered Annie a hand. “I think I’m just going to shower off and head home.”

Annie took her hand and let herself be pulled up. “That sounds good. I’m a little dizzy from that last down.” They went downstairs and into the women’s locker room in silence. The showers were empty, as the hour was late. Annie, clad in a towel, slipped into a curtained stall. The steaming water stung everywhere, but it made her head throb less. She examined her arms and legs, finding multiple bruises that had started to swell up. Poking at the arm that had blocked Mikasa’s knee made her draw a hissing breath between her teeth, and she kept herself from doing it anywhere else.

Past the sound of her shower, she heard footsteps and a curtain being drawn aside. Quickly, she leaned slightly to see through the gap at the edge of the curtain, but only saw Mikasa’s hand hanging up her towel outside the stall. Turning away slowly, she tried to figure out what she had just done. Why she had tried to catch sight of Mikasa, in a towel or out, she did not know.

Annie scrubbed hard at her face with her hands, trying and failing to not think about Mikasa’s abs and blushing face. Hurrying now, she finished showering inside of five minutes and wrapped herself tightly in her towel. She refused to even glance in Mikasa’s direction as she got out of the stall and the showers entirely.

Slowing her breathing brought her mind mostly under control. As she pulled on the jeans and heavy hoodie she’d packed for going home, she frowned. Something seemed disingenuous about what she had done, as though she’d some ulterior motive to circumvent Mikasa’s gentle behavior. It felt too soon, too sharp, and she had about managed to think about work enough while putting her hair in a bun to feel less strongly when she heard wet footsteps behind her.

Turning came naturally. Her mouth going completely dry at the sight of Mikasa standing dripping in nothing but a towel that went only halfway down her perfectly toned thighs was also natural. Mikasa blushed again at the way Annie stared.

“Sorry,” said Mikasa. “I just wanted to catch you and wish you a good night.”

“Yeah,” Annie said without stammering. “Good night, Mikasa. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Mikasa smiled broadly and went down another row of lockers. The thought of following her and seeing how she looked behind the towel took Annie for only a moment before she stuffed her towel and her clothes into her backpack, jammed her feet into her shoes, and left the locker room and the gym with her eyes on the floor. She focused on driving carefully in the heavy, cold dark, arriving at her apartment in fifteen minutes. Cooking a late dinner served as a good distraction, as was taking one of her leftover vicodin and throwing herself into bed. Exhausted by the fight, she fell asleep immediately.

When she woke a few hours later, though, she lay curled on her side, at a loss as to why it felt like there was fire running down her spine. It took only a moment to realize she was wet, burning and aching between her legs. She bit down on a whimper, sighing instead. Thought was hard to come by, but she struggled for it. At length, she remembered that she had been dreaming of being pinned to a wall by someone much taller than herself, a leg between her own and rocking hard against her. She pulled the blanket over her head and closed her eyes.

It was a common thing for her, waking painfully aroused after dreams of sex. She pressed her lips together at the same time as pressing together her legs. The pressure only made it worse, and she reached one hand between her legs and the other up her shirt. Annie sought more images from her dream, unconcerned for the moment about who her mental partner had been. She whimpered as she slipped a hand past the band of her underwear and felt her wet skin. She remembered long fingers caressing her clit, and she did the same.

Annie rocked against her hand, desperately wishing there was a tongue between her legs instead of her fingers. She rolled a nipple between thumb and forefinger, groaning low and long. Slipping a finger inside herself made her gasp.

“F-fuck,” she moaned into the mattress. “God, _please_.” She brought her hand away from her breasts, rolled onto her back, and spread her legs to play with her clit while thrusting her finger fast and hard. The images came back more fiercely the more she touched herself. Annie started to pant, to moan as she recalled how a woman with black hair had buried her face between her thighs and licked and sucked with skill and eagerness.

With one more frantic rub to her clit, Annie came hard and held back her moans behind tightly closed lips, hips jerking against her hands. She breathed unevenly as she came down, keeping her hands between her legs. Her eyes still closed, she dwelled on her dream and thought hard about how it had ended. The woman had lifted her head slowly, and Annie had been gently greeted by Mikasa’s lovely smiling face.

She opened her eyes. She had expected this dream in some way, and it left her trembling and awkward. She got out of bed to wash her hands. In the bathroom, she did not look at herself in the mirror. She was too busy wondering how she would get through seeing Mikasa in the morning.


	3. snow days in December

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snow is already falling, to Annie's chagrin. Nevertheless, the promise of meeting over coffee is enough reason to get out of bed, and she deeply enjoys her date with Mikasa despite embarrassment over dreams and stories shared. Similarly, Ymir and Christa enjoy hearing about it over lunch the following Monday.

Annie had made sure to set an alarm for eight-twenty on her bedside clock and one for eight-thirty on her phone. While it was easy to wearily push the snooze on the clock, it was hard to ignore both alarms going off when the snooze ran out ten minutes later. She groaned, body stiff and pained from the fight. Slowly she sat up, and she deeply regretted not bringing the blanket with her to guard against the chill.

She turned on the heat immediately, going to the living room window and looking past the blinds. A layer of snow was on the ground and the cars not under covered parking. Shivering, she put herself in the shower and turned the water as hot as it could go without scalding. Annie held her head under the spray, trying and failing to not dwell on her dream. Sighing, she washed her hair and body meticulously, and dried off well when she was done.

It was far too cold to think of wearing anything that wasn’t warm. She doubted Mikasa would mind a turtleneck sweater, a hoodie, jeans, and boots for an early morning date. Leaving early to allow for snowy driving, she found the coffee shop at nine twenty-seven and parked as close as she could. It was warm inside, rich with the scent of coffee and baked goods. She looked around and spotted Mikasa sitting at a table big enough for two, poring over a thick novel with a ruddy red scarf steadfastly wound around her neck though her coat was on her chair. On Annie’s approach, she looked up and smiled.

“Good morning,” she said.

“‘Morning,” Annie replied. “Mind if I get something?”

“Please.” She returned to her novel while Annie went to the counter. After getting a blueberry scone and a large coffee with a splash of cream and two spoonfuls of sugar, she returned to Mikasa’s table.

“What’re you reading?” she asked before taking a bite of her scone.

“An old favorite,” said Mikasa. “It takes place during winter, and I like to reread it when snow starts falling.”

“Can I see?” She took the book when Mikasa offered it, examining the cover image of a black wolf running against a snowy plain before turning it over to read the blurb. “Werewolves?”

“Basically. The author turns it all on its head.”

“You like supernatural stories?”

“I like being taken away from the real world. What do you want when you read?”

“The same, I suppose. I just don’t read fantasy too often.” She paused to open to the first page of the book, reading a few paragraphs. She closed it and looked at the cover. “That’s a pretty German name. Is this translated?”

Mikasa smiled. “Would you be more interested if it was?”

“I’m always on the lookout for a good novel in German.” She considered the title a while longer. “But I might try this anyway.” She handed the book back, raising a brow when Mikasa’s fingers brushed hers with purpose. “Your fingers are warm.”

“And yours are freezing. I feel like giving you my gloves.”

Annie snickered. “They wouldn’t fit. Your hands are bigger than mine.”

“Oh, not by that much.”

Again she raised her brow, and she held out her hand with her palm turned toward Mikasa. Mikasa put her hand against hers; her palm was larger and her fingers were longer by a full knuckle. Mikasa sighed and brought up her other hand, bringing Annie’s hand down to the table to enfold her cold fingers between her warm palms.

“I’m amazed that you’re not wearing gloves,” said Mikasa.

Annie did her best to not stare at Mikasa’s long fingers, instead saying, “Looks like I don’t need to if you’re going to be my personal heater.”

“People do tell me I run hot. Here, give me your other hand.” She swapped Annie’s hands, rubbing at her fingers gently. “Are your fingers usually this cold?”

“More or less. I try not to touch people out of the blue.”

“As long as you don’t stick your hand up my shirt without warning, I think I’ll be fine.”

Annie was thinking of doing precisely that before she could stop herself, and she took a drink of her coffee to distract her mind. Upon putting down her cup and clearing her throat, she said, “I suppose you don’t like crime novels or cop shows.”

“Not particularly. I’m bad at leaving work at the station, and I don’t like getting reminded of it when I’m off duty. Though it sounds like you take your translating with you everywhere.”

“I like to stay sharp, even if novels don’t cross over much with work.” She noticed the way Mikasa was fidgeting with her hand. “What?”

“Well…” She rearranged their hands, lacing their fingers together.

Annie raised a brow slightly. “I forgot you like to touch.”

“You have nice hands and I’d like to hold them.”

She smirked. “Even though they’re little blocks of ice.”

“Especially because they are.” She hesitated. “Unless this makes you uncomfortable.”

“I wouldn’t let you do this if it did. It’s nice to hold hands.” She struggled not to, but yawned enormously and put her free hand over her open mouth. “Christ, sorry.”

“Couldn’t sleep?”

“Got woken up.”

Mikasa’s brows rose. “Your apartment complex seemed very quiet. Was someone having a party?”

“No, it—it was a dream.”

Her expression softened; she rubbed Annie’s thumb with her own. “How often do you have nightmares about the assault?”

“What? No, it wasn’t one of those. They don’t wake me up anymore.”

“That’s all right, but then what woke you?”

Annie sighed, feeling the back of her neck start to burn. “It’s nothing. Besides, I usually sleep until ten or later on the weekends, so I’m just tired anyway.” She watched Mikasa regard her for a time, raising a brow at her slow smile. “What?”

“I was just thinking,” said Mikasa, “that if you sleep for so long, you probably get the worst bedhead. I have to assume that it’s very cute.”

Annie opened her mouth, but closed it quickly and took a drink of her coffee.

“What?” Mikasa said with a chuckle.

“Nothing. Just something stupid.”

After a moment, Mikasa put her elbow on the table and her chin in her palm, and smiled. “Were you going to offer a night in your bed to show me how you look in the morning?”

A jolt ran up Annie’s spine, making her hand twitch. She looked at Mikasa, who looked startled and blushed.

“I—I’m sorry,” she stammered. “That came out wrong. At the wrong time.” She cleared her throat and made to take her hand from Annie’s.

Annie caught her fingers. To Mikasa’s confused stare, she muttered, “The dream was about you. It had nothing to do with the fight.”

“Oh.” Her blush darkened. “I probably shouldn’t have wished you good night in just my towel.”

“Maybe, but I’m not really complaining.” She cleared her throat as well. “Look, let’s talk about something else. It’s way too early for that.”

“Sounds like a plan.” She thought briefly, and then asked, “Why German?”

“You asked if my father was military, right? He was stationed in Germany when I was born. I was actually born _there_ , not in the states.”

“How long did your family live there?”

“Until I was five. My mother wanted me to start school in America, so she took me back while my father stayed in Germany.”

“So how badly did you get teased for your accent?”

“By then, my father had started teaching me how to fight, so I just beat the other kids up if they made fun of my accent or my nose.”

Mikasa smiled at her. “I would’ve loved to see a little girl beat up her classmates.”

Annie smirked. “I used to get in so much trouble. Then people stopped telling on me.”

“Why?”

“Imagine you’re a ten year old boy and you just got your ass kicked by a little blonde girl who’s five or six inches shorter than you. Would _you_ tell anyone?”

She chuckled. “Probably not. The kids I beat up always told. I guess I’ve never been as little.”

“Says the woman who can bench press two-forty. Have you always been freakishly strong?”

“Pretty much. It’s helped quite a bit.”

“In your job?”

“That, and attracting a girlfriend or two.”

The sly smile on Mikasa’s face made Annie roll her eyes, but smile as she did.

“Admit it,” Mikasa said, rubbing Annie’s thumb again. “You were attracted by me being strong.”

“Your abs certainly don’t hurt.”

“Thank you for the compliment. Though it’s not like you _aren’t_ strong. I’m pretty sure you bruised my ribs.”

Annie winced. “Sorry. I’m not very good at holding back in a fight.”

“It’s all right. I heal quickly. How much _did_ you train before our fight? I wasn’t prepared for your punches.”

“Every night after work for an hour or so, and then a few hours every day on the weekend. How much do you work out, miss iron abs?”

“Two hours every weekday and four on the weekends.”

Annie blinked slowly. “Addict much?”

“A little. At least I admit it.”

“Wait, how long have you been awake?”

“I’m up at five most days.”

She shuddered. “No thanks. During the week, sure, but I’d probably hit you if you tried to get me up that early on the weekend.”

“I’ll let you be a sleeping beauty. I imagine you really are lovely when you sleep.”

She smirked, bordering on a grin. “What, I’m not pretty now?”

“Oh, so you like to fish for compliments?” She thought carefully, tapping her fingers on the back of Annie’s hand. Her smile returned, and she lifted Annie’s hand to kiss her knuckles. She said, “ _Saa, kimi wa suteki no yūjo da ne_.”

Her cheeks burned. “And that means what?”

“I told you that you’re an amazing, beautiful, graceful woman.”

“Charmer.” She toyed with Mikasa’s fingers. Her mouth felt full of cotton. She swallowed, looked at Mikasa’s dark eyes, and hesitated a moment before saying, “ _Du bist eine wunderschöne Frau_.” At Mikasa’s expectant smile, she said, “It means ‘you’re a gorgeous woman.’”

“And you call me a charmer.”

“Most women aren’t completely charmed by German.”

“Well, I am, so you don’t have to worry.”

Annie looked at her a long moment.

“What’s wrong?”

“You really do like me, don’t you.”

“For what I know of you, yes, I do. Does that make you uncomfortable?”

Annie shrugged slightly, looking away. “No one’s _liked_ me in half a year. I’m not used to it anymore.”

“Your friend seems to still like you, even though she’s your ex.”

“We didn’t really talk at all after our fight, so it’s not like I knew she didn’t completely hate me.” She sighed, rubbing her face. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be such an ass on our first date.”

“It doesn’t help that you had a sex dream about me _before_ our date, right?”

Annie looked at her with lowered brows and a blush on her cheeks. “I thought we agreed to not talk about that so early.”

“Couldn’t resist. Here, come on.”

“To where?”

“A walk. It’ll help clear your head.”

“There’s _snow_ outside.”

“Walking will keep us warm.” She stood up, letting Annie’s hand go to pull on a black peacoat and gloves. When her coat was buttoned, she offered her hand.

Annie looked askance at her, but gave in when Mikasa smiled brightly at her. She stood up and took Mikasa’s hand, griping her coffee with her free hand to keep hold of its warmth. They went outside into the still, crisp air. They started off down the street, hand in hand and keeping a watch for ice on the sidewalk.

“I can’t believe it snowed already,” Annie grumbled.

“It _is_ December.”

“I’m used to it snowing closer to Christmas.”

“Do you prefer a white Christmas?”

She hesitated before shrugging. “I guess. I liked it when I was a kid. Though winter could be hellish where we lived in Germany.”

“I like winter a lot,” Mikasa said, squeezing Annie’s hand. “It’s fun to bundle up under quilts and blankets.”

“Probably a little easier to stay warm with a scarf like that.”

Mikasa ran her fingers over the smooth knitted surface of the scarf. “My grandmother’s knitted since she was a girl. This was her Christmas present to me a couple of years ago. Does your mother do anything with crafts?”

Annie froze up. She looked away, scratching at her coffee cup with her forefinger. “She quilted.”

The silence that followed was awkward to the point of pain. Mikasa took her meaning and struggled for anything to say. After they had gone some distance without speaking, Mikasa let go of Annie’s hand. Annie stopped walking to look at her, brow rising when Mikasa put her left arm over her shoulders and pulled her in a bit closer.

“Sorry,” Mikasa said softly as they started to walk again.

“It’s all right. It’s not like I ever really talked about her.” She took a drink of her coffee. “Let’s just keep talking. Have you ever been to Japan in the winter?”

“I spent my last year of college in Japan, actually. It was kind of a vacation before I entered the police academy.”

“How so?”

“Japanese universities are a joke. My study abroad program put me in one of the most prestigious private universities in Tokyo. I spent most of my time reading comic books in class and getting straight As.” She noticed Annie’s shoulders shaking with quiet laughter. “What?”

“You had an accent when you said ‘Tokyo.’”

“And you don’t have an accent when pronouncing German words correctly?”

“All right, fair point. What’s winter like in Japan?”

“It depends. It snowed a lot where I was staying. Still wasn’t as bad as the rainy season and summer.”

“What?”

“The Godforsaken humidity. At least when you’re cold you can warm up. There’s no helping humidity.”

“Poor baby,” Annie drawled flatly.

“I’ll dump snow down your hoodie.”

Annie smirked. “Are you really twenty-six? You act like a kid when you’re off duty.”

“I try to relax and stay happy. Work is stressful.”

“What department do you work in?”

“Well,” Mikasa said, looking away, “I’m trying to make detective in homicide.”

Her brows rose despite herself. “Don’t you think you’ll get it?”

“Everyone says I will, but you never know until you get it.”

“Granted. I was worried about scholarships for grad school.” She chewed on her tongue, uncomfortable with the words sitting on it. Glancing up at Mikasa, she gauged the expression on her face. It was quiet, closed off, and unfocused in anxiety. Annie took another drink of her coffee, swallowed slowly, and then softly said, “You’ll be fine if you’re always like you were when you came to my apartment.”

Mikasa looked at her, brows up, only to find her looking at her cup very carefully. A small smile came to her. She lifted her hand from Annie’s shoulder, pressing her fingertips to Annie’s chin. Before Annie could turn far, Mikasa leaned down to kiss her cheek. When she drew back, Annie looked only slightly startled, eyes wide and cheeks pink.

“Thanks,” said Mikasa.

“You’re welcome,” Annie mumbled. She took another drink, but grimaced as she swallowed.

Mikasa chuckled. “Finally went cold?”

“Yeah.” She looked around for a trashcan and tossed the cup inside when they passed one. Tucking her hand inside the pocket of her hoodie, she asked, “Is this your subtle tour of your neighborhood?”

“More or less. It’s not quite as nice as where you live, but I do live near a park and have off-street parking.”

“But do you have meth-heads breaking into your building?”

“Not _my_ building specifically. I think he chose your complex because it’s a little more upscale. It’s just unfortunate that he chose your apartment.”

Annie hummed flatly. After a moment, she reached up to grasp Mikasa’s fingers where they rested on her shoulder. “I’m glad he didn’t take anything and run.”

“We would’ve caught him. He wouldn’t have hidden his tracks very well. He probably would’ve turned himself in, since he was so upset about what he did.”

Annie frowned. “I hope you’re not asking me to be sympathetic to him.”

“Nope. I would’ve pummeled him.”

The smile that came to her was deep with pleasure; she leaned against Mikasa a little. “How hard can you punch when you’re not holding back?”

“Hard enough to dent a tree.”

“Excuse me?”

Mikasa lifted her arm away and pulled off her glove. She offered Annie her hand. Her knuckles and the back of her hand were mottled with small scars. As she pulled her glove back on, she said, “I got really drunk in my junior year in college, and someone dared me to punch a tree as hard as I could. I put a pretty sizable dent in the tree, but I also broke my hand so badly that bone came through the skin.”

For a long time, Annie simply stared at her. “I can’t tell if this is funny or abjectly stupid.”

“It’s both.”

Smiling not a little hopelessly, Annie pulled Mikasa’s arm back around her shoulders and set them to walking again. “I didn’t think I’d be on a date with someone dumb enough to punch a tree on a drunken dare.”

“You’ve never done anything really stupid?”

“A few drunken hookups, but not _that_ stupid. You’re in a league of your own on this one.”

“I suppose you’d take advantage of me when I’m drunk.”

“I wouldn’t make you punch anything, if that’s what you’re worried about,” said Annie.

“What would you make me do?” Mikasa asked, drumming her fingers on Annie’s shoulder.

“Honestly, I wouldn’t get you that drunk. I can only get so much pleasure out of seeing a person fall over and laugh until they pass out. I’d want you mostly sober before I made you do anything for me.”

“But what would you make me do?”

She looked up to see Mikasa smiling at her. She opened her mouth, but stopped short at the way Mikasa’s eyes smoldered, half-lidded and dark. Annie was made keenly aware of the heat of Mikasa’s palm through her glove as she moved her hand to rest on her cheek. Her breath stuttered to a halt with the offer in Mikasa’s eyes; a faint blush came to her cheeks.

Clearing her throat, she said, “I’m not sure. I don’t really know what you’re good at yet, aside from fighting and police work.”

“I could show you a few things.”

Her blush darkened at the undercurrent in Mikasa’s voice. Frowning slightly, she said, “Aren’t you being a little forward on a first date?”

Mikasa had the grace to look embarrassed. “Sorry. I’ll stop.”

“Fuck, if this is how it is with me, then I feel awkward for every girlfriend I’e ever had.”

“What?”

Annie sighed, looking away. “Usually I’m the one with sex on the brain. It’s weird to be getting eye-fucked like that after years of being the one going after my girlfriend.”

“I really will stop.”

“You’ve been at it since before I admitted I had a dream about you. I was expecting you to still be Officer Adorable from last night.”

Mikasa winced. “Did I screw this up?”

Annie regarded her and her anxiety. After a moment, she said, “No, you’re fine. You just came off very demure and proper until this morning.”

“Really? I thought I was a nervous idiot.”

“You were a little, but it was charming.”

Mikasa smiled, raising a brow. “What am I now?”

Annie looked at her again. Evenly, she said, “Too tall.”

Confusion knocked the smile from Mikasa’s face. “What?”

“Lean down.” When Mikasa had done so, she caught her by the scarf and kissed her on the cheek. In her ear, she said, “Now you’re the woman I’m dating.”

Mikasa straightened up, almost grinning. She pulled Annie close, resting her cheek on the top of her head. Annie sighed, but gripped the lapels of Mikasa’s jacket and leaned in a bit. She hid her smile in Mikasa’s chest.

————

Christa startled upon walking into her office early Monday morning and finding Annie sitting in the guest chair. She was fiddling with her phone, and she looked up briefly when she noticed Christa staring at her.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hi,” Christa said faintly. She went behind her desk when Annie offered nothing more, arranging her coat on her chair and her purse on the curve of the desk behind her. Sitting down, she looked at Annie with a curious cant to her brow.

“Erm,” said Christa. “How…how was your weekend? How did your match go?”

“Technically she won,” Annie replied. “She thinks I may have bruised her ribs, though.”

Christa hid her face in her hands. “Oh Jesus _Christ_ , Annie.”

Annie smirked, opened a specific content on her phone, and set her phone on Christa’s desk. She tapped the desk noisily until Christa looked up, and then tapped the phone gently. Christa leaned in to look at the screen.

“You have her cell phone in your contacts?”

“That’s what you do with the person you’re dating.”

It took a long moment for Christa to begin to parse this. She stared at Annie’s phone, and then lifted her head to stare at Annie. “Let me get this straight. You challenged her to a fight and bruised her ribs—and now you two are _dating_?”

“She asked me out to coffee after the fight.”

Christa stared for a few moments more before starting to giggle. She could not stop herself for a time, and her cheeks were flushed when she finally calmed down. “Annie, that’s so exciting! She seems really nice!”

“She is. I think I have to take back what I sat about you going for dorks with Ymir. Mikasa’s kind of a kid off duty.”

“What do you mean?”

“We were holding hands inside of five minutes of me sitting down.”

“Aw!” Christa said, dragging the sound out. “She sounds so cute!”

“I…I actually called her ‘Officer Adorable’ to her face.”

“You _did_? Is that going to be her pet name?”

“No, that’d be weird.”

“Do you think she’ll give _you_ a pet name?”

“She doesn’t seem the type.”

“God, I want you to tell me all about her!”

Annie took back her phone and checked the time. “Except we can’t spend that much time talk—” Her phone chimed, vibrating in her hand to signal the arrival of a text message. Glancing at Christa, she opened her messages. It was from Mikasa, simply reading _Have a good day!_ She sat still for a moment before typing _You too_ , and sending it back. Looking up, she sat Christa grinning at her, elbows on the desk and chin in her palms.

“That was Mikasa, wasn’t it,” Christa said.

“It was.”

“You’re smiling, you know.”

“I’m allowed to,” Annie remarked. She rose to her feet.

“What, we’re not going to talk at all?”

“Unless you have lunch plans with Ymir, we can talk later.”

“Do you want to come with?”

Annie stopped halfway out the door. “What?”

“We were going to go out for lunch to that diner a few blocks away. Do…would you like to come with?”

“I’d be a third wheel.”

“I’d really like for you and Ymir to get to know each other.”

Before she could stop herself, Annie asked, “Why?”

Christa looked wounded only a second or two before saying, “Because you’re both important to me and I think you’d get along well.”

“You’re asking me to make nice with my ex’s new girlfriend.”

“Well…yes. I’d do the same with Mikasa.”

Annie sighed quietly. She scratched behind one ear. “As long as I’m allowed to kick Ymir if she starts calling me ‘big nose,’ I’ll go.”

“ _You_ bruised your new girlfriend’s ribs. _I’ll_ kick Ymir if she starts being a jerk.”

Sighing a laugh, Annie nodded. “All right, deal. Just come get me at lunch.”

“Try not to spend too much texting Mikasa.” She winked when Annie looked back, and laughed when Annie rolled her eyes and left.

Still, Annie left her phone on her desk as she worked, glancing at it every hour or so. She was not disappointed by no further texts coming, aware of Mikasa starting her shift at seven in the morning that day. Once or twice, she thought about sending a text of her own. The urge passed when she could not think of what to say. She focused on work, and did not look up when shuffling footsteps came through her open door and someone fell heavily into her guest chair.

As she turned to reach for a large dictionary of business terms in German, she said, “Hi, Ymir.”

“What the hell, how’d you know it was me?”

“No one on the floor except Christa and Hanji comes to my office without asking permission, and everyone always knocks anyway. You like to try and piss me off, so I—” She jumped at the sound of Ymir’s boot heels slamming down on the top of her desk.

“I think this counts as pissing you off properly,” Ymir said with a grin.

Annie looked at her with a faint frown. “I could see about getting you arrested for harassment, you know.”

Ymir put her hands behind her head, grinning even more broadly. “Yeah, Christa said you finally got a new girlfriend. You really landed that cop?”

“Yes.”

“Man, if I didn’t have Christa, I’d be hella jealous. She’s _hot_.”

She looked away, avoiding any thoughts of Mikasa’s half-lidded eyes. “She’s very attractive.”

“Well, let’s go,” Ymir said, swinging her feet off the desk. “You can talk about her all you want over lunch.” She waited impatiently as Annie stood and pulled on her coat and purse, rocking on her feet and swaying her shoulders. They met Christa just outside the door, Ymir taking one of Christa’s hands and stuffing it into the pocket of her army coat. This done, they left the building and went into the snowy streets. It was overcast; their breath was still visible despite being midday.

Annie caught herself wondering if Mikasa was on patrol, stuck in a car that might not have the best heating. She was still stuck on this thought when they sat down in a booth in the diner, not paying much attention to the menu she flipped through. She choked when Ymir soundly kicked her shin.

“What the _fuck_?” she snapped, pulling up her leg to rub where she’d been kicked.

Ymir opened her mouth, but coughed hard when Christa drove an elbow into her gut. “Babe, _ow_!”

“I told you to be nice,” Christa said, a warning in the terseness off her voice.

Ymir coughed again, massaging her stomach. “Okay, okay, sorry.” She looked at Annie and said, “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sure,” Annie said flatly.

“I’ll buy you lunch.”

“But not your girlfriend’s?”

“Fuck you, I got paid Friday. I’ll pay for all of it. Just don’t order anything fancy.”

“I’ll make sure to buy three of their most expensive lunch deals.”

Ymir turned to Christa with an exaggerated pout. “Why does she get to be a bitch?”

Christa sighed and looked at Annie.

She held up her hands. “All right, I’ll stop.” The waiter came to them then, and they ordered after some deliberation. When the man had gone off, Annie looked at Ymir. “Why did you kick me?”

“I thought it would be funny, since you were so completely lost about your girlfriend.”

The back of her neck tightened; she raised a brow slowly. “Why do you think I was thinking about her?”

“‘Cause you had the same sort of weird look on your face when you were thinking about her in your office.”

“Weird _how_?”

Ymir laughed. “Jesus, why’re you so defensive? You got a starry-eyed kinda look to you, that’s all. What’s wrong with getting that way over a new lady?”

Annie had no response to this, and looked away.

“Aw, you’re _shy_ ,” Ymir chortled. “Aren’t you cute.” She winced when Christa pinched her wrist. “Hey, I’m not being mean! It’s cute that she’s a little goofy over her lady!”

“Not as bad as you two,” Annie said.

“We’re not goofy!” Ymir said.

“You crammed Christa’s hand into your pocket the second you could and she told me part of the reason she fell for you is that you wear reading glasses when you do a tattoo. You’re way worse than I am.”

“Then you admit you’re a dork about her,” Ymir said, smiling slyly.

“A little. She lends herself to silliness.”

“Like how?” Christa asked, sitting forward eagerly.

“She once punched a tree hard enough to dent it on a drunken dare in college.”

The both of them stared, mouths slightly open. Christa said, “I’m sorry?”

“She broke her hand pretty badly.”

Ymir put her face in her hands and her forehead on the table and began to laugh silently, body shaking. She could not seem to stop, even when Christa thumped her weakly on the back. Christa looked at Annie desperately, but Annie only shrugged.

“You can laugh,” said Annie.

“I don’t think I can,” Christa replied.

By the time she sat up, Ymir’s face was flushed and there were tears in her eyes. “Oh—oh my God. Your girlfriend…punched a tree hard enough to _break her hand_.”

“When she was drunk.”

“Okay, we’re all going out to drink. I gotta see her drunk.”

“I’m not going to let you get Mikasa stupidly drunk,” Annie said as their orders arrived. “If she’s dumb enough drunk to punch a tree, I’m not even going to risk letting her near you intoxicated.”

“Aw, c’mon, I’d just convince her to get more tattoos and charge her extra.”

“Ymir’s actually very sweet to drunks,” Christa said, taking a bite of her grilled cheese sandwich. “The first time we went out drinking, she carried me all the way home.”

“Yeah, but I tripped every other person I knew there.”

“You like to play the bad guy, don’t you,” Annie said.

She put her arm around Christa’s shoulders and pulled her in close. “I’m good to Christa, and that’s what matters.”

Annie looked at Christa, finding her smiling and leaning gently against Ymir. When her chest ached, she was surprised to realize it was not due to jealousy of Ymir, but jealousy of the two of them and their position. She wondered if Mikasa would like the diner, what she liked for lunch. The urge to check her phone took her, but she held down on it by drumming her fingers on the table.

Christa noticed. “You can check. We won’t feel awkward.”

“It’s fine.”

“Why are you so nervous?” Christa asked gently. “When I left a rose on your desk, you immediately went and got me three. This isn’t like you.”

“It’s been a while since I was interested in anyone. I don’t want to just run into things.”

“Pussy,” said Ymir.

Annie looked at her with an expression entirely flat save her raised brow. “My God, you are the most endearing person on the planet.”

Ymir grinned. “Hey, not my fault you’re being a fuckin’ wuss. Do you think _she’s_ all wigged out about liking you?”

“No, but she doesn’t want to move quickly either.”

Ymir leaned forward and sang, “Liar.”

Annie thought of Mikasa’s flirting and stamped down on any expression she could make.

Ymir barked with laughter. “You are _such_ a liar. God, what’s wrong with just having fun with the fact that you two morons like each other?”

“Nothing,” Annie muttered, and said nothing more as she began to eat her sandwich.

Disbelief and disdain writ clear on her face, Ymir sighed noisily. She looked to Christa, but Christa only shrugged slightly. After rolling her eyes, Ymir picked up her own sandwich and tore into it. They ate in silence, Annie looking away when they all had finished.

Ymir sighed again, putting a hand to her temple. “Leonhardt, how old _are_ you?”

Annie looked at her. “What does that matter?”

“You’re acting like some stupid teenager trying to be cool.”

“How old are you to be lecturing me on acting my age?”

“Thirty-two.”

She jerked in her seat. “You’re _thirty-two_?” She turned to Christa. “Why didn’t you tell me she’s six years older than you?”

“Based on how you’re acting, you probably wouldn’t have believed her,” said Ymir. She smiled charmingly. “I’ve got a baby face.”

Stymied, Annie stared at her for a time.

Ymir pressed on. “Stop doing this ‘too cool to like someone’ bullshit. You _do_ like her, right?”

“As much as one can for the time we’ve known each other outside of me being one of her cases.”

“Then just go with it. Who knows? Maybe she’ll make you smile.”

Annie sighed and looked to Christa.

Christa waved both hands. “No, don’t look at me. I agree with Ymir one hundred percent. Okay, maybe not the crack about smiling, but you shouldn’t be so nervous.” She smiled. “If she still wanted to date you after you bruised her ribs, then I don’t think you have to worry about her liking you.”

Annie said nothing. She swore angrily when her other shin was kicked, turning a glare at Ymir. Ymir pointed lazily at Christa, and Annie grumbled, “I’m sure.”

“It _was_ me,” Christa said.

“Oh, what the hell, why are you both kicking me?”

“Because you’re being really stupid! It’s been half a year! Just—just be happy again!”

Annie opened her mouth to argue back, but stopped short at her phone chiming in her purse. She did not look at Ymir and Christa’s shared smile, retrieving her phone and checking her text messages. Mikasa had written only one thing, and it was a heart emoticon. She stared.

After a few seconds, she typed a message and sent it back. She only had to wait a short time before Mikasa replied, and she sent another message shortly thereafter. Again, Mikasa was prompt, and Annie sent a final message and waited for one last reply and the heart emoticon that ended it. Barely looking up in time, Annie stuffed her phone back in her purse before Ymir could snatch it out of her hands.

“Come on, you’ve gotta tell us what’s making you smile,” said Ymir. “I’ve seriously _never_ seen you smile.”

“I asked when her shift would be over today, and if she’d like to go out to dinner. She said yes, and she’ll come to the office around six.”

Ymir laughed. “There, was that so hard?”

“If you’re going to try and steal my phone every time I have a text conversation with her, it might be.”

“What? I just wanna know how she types.”

“Probably better than you do.”

Ymir fell back into her seat with a pout. “Liar.”

“Sweetie, you don’t use full words,” said Christa, patting Ymir’s thigh. “Anyone who uses the full word ‘you’ instead of the letter types better than you by default.”

“Smartass,” Ymir grumbled fondly, wrapping one arm tight around Christa’s neck while roughly rubbing the knuckles of her free hand on Christa’s head. Christa, grinning, retaliated by slipping her hand under Ymir’s jacket and tickling under her arm. Ymir yelped and released her immediately, putting her arms down tight to her sides.

“Did she ever tickle _you_?” Ymir asked, frowning at Annie.

“Quite often,” Annie replied, taking a sip of her water. “You learn to enjoy it.”

“Okay, but not in public.”

“That’s what she likes to do most.”

Ymir looked at Christa with faint horror. Christa only smiled and leaned against her. After a few seconds, Ymir sighed and put an arm around Christa’s shoulders. Annie fought it briefly, but eventually smiled at the two of them. Ymir caught sight of her expression, smiled as well, and said nothing.

————

There was only one person in the office that regularly stayed past five, and Annie glanced at her chat client at five forty-six to see Hanji’s icon still active and on a call. She did not envy them, knowing it was an emergency call given the time. Heaving a sigh, she leaned back in her chair and stared at the pages on her desk. It was a final implementation from a software firm in Germany selling their programs to insurance companies. It had come in the night before, and she had been poring over it all day.

Technical and medical jargon bored her, but it was her specialty. She dragged a dictionary of medical terms her way, seeking out a phrase that had lost her. The silence of the empty floor was so absolute that she had tuned it out, and at first she did not hear the gentle knock on her open door. When the sound registered, she looked up and found Mikasa standing beyond the door, a redheaded woman before her.

“Petra?” Annie asked. She glanced at her computer. “Hanji’s still—never mind, they’re off the call.”

“Good,” Petra said in a sigh. “They haven’t been coming home before seven for days now. Are you swamped too?” When Annie gestured to her desk, Petra laughed. “It never changes here.” She turned to Mikasa, smiling. “You two have fun.”

“Thank you, miss Ral,” Mikasa called after her as she walked away.

“Do you know Petra?” Annie asked, beginning to clean up her desk.

“No, I—well, I got a little lost downstairs. She spotted me and asked where I was going. When I said this floor, she asked who I was meeting and I told her your name. Who is she?”

“My boss’s girlfriend. They’ve been together longer than I’ve been working here.” She waited until her computer had shut down before standing and pulling on her jacket and purse. She paused after leaving her office, looking Mikasa up and down.

Mikasa looked at herself, clad in boots, jeans, peacoat, and scarf. She smiled. “Did you think I was going to show up in my uniform?”

“A little,” Annie said.

“It tends to make people jumpy when I wear my uniform off duty. Though if it’s a turn-on for you, I can always work something out.”

Annie raised a brow slowly. “You really are remarkable, you know that?”

Mikasa chuckled, put an arm around Annie’s shoulders, and kissed her head. “Want me to stop?”

“No, it’s still fine. I’ll tell you when it gets annoying.”

“All right. Where did you want to go? I don’t have clothes for a nice restaurant unless we stop by my place.”

“There’s a diner I went to for lunch. Does that sound all right?”

“Sure. Are we driving?”

“It’s just a few blocks.”

Mikasa smiled and started to take her arm from Annie’s shoulders. “A walk it is.” She reached for Annie’s hand, and her smile broadened when Annie met her halfway. She slipped their hands into one of her coat pockets, and did not immediately notice the rueful smile on Annie’s face. When they had gotten into an elevator alone, she spotted it. “What?”

“I called Ymir and Christa goofy for doing this today when we went to lunch.”

Mikasa hummed, squeezing Annie’s hand in her pocket as they left the elevator on the ground floor. “I guess it is. Though you can’t deny it’s fun.” They both shuddered on leaving the building’s warmth. Mikasa slipped her hand free of her pocket to lay her arm around Annie’s shoulders again.

“One of these days, I’m going to make you skip work to warm up my office,” Annie said, leaning into her.

“You can always sit in my lap if you get too cold. But—”

“You might not sit still while I’m there, right?” When Mikasa looked down to her, she smiled. “You never know. That might be my plan.”

Mikasa smiled to match her, brows rising. “Are you going to start flirting back?”

“Maybe. I can’t let you have all the fun.”

“Does that mean you’ll sit in my lap at the diner?”

“No, that would be weird.”

“Spoilsport.”

Annie drew her hand out of Mikasa’s pocket and thumped her on the side.

Mikasa stiffened and quietly said, “ _Ow_.”

Wincing, Annie said, “Sorry.”

“Aim for my hip or my arm until next week. I’m not that much of a masochist.”

“Right.” She put her hands into her own pockets and they went along in silence until they reached the diner. A waitress, smiling and cheery, came to meet them as they stepped inside and Mikasa took her arm from Annie’s shoulders. She seated the in a booth in a corner, setting down both menus on the same side of the table.

“You ladies take your time,” she said with a wink. “I’ll be back with water in a bit.”

Annie stared after her as she went, and turned to find Mikasa already sitting down and looking at her expectantly. She sighed. “Are we that obvious?”

“Is that bad?”

“No,” Annie replied, sitting down next to her. “Sorry, I’m really not used to dating anymore.”

“If it makes you feel better,” Mikasa said, leaning down to kiss Annie’s cheek, “I think we make a very good looking couple.”

“Flirting and flattery are two things I can rely on you for.”

“You seem to have had a deficit of both recently.”

Annie snorted. “And you’d like to make up for it?”

Mikasa lay her hand on Annie’s thigh. “If that’s all right.”

The weight and warmth of Mikasa’s hand set a spark in the base of her spine. She put her hand atop Mikasa’s and held her fingers.

“That’s fine,” she murmured. A little more flatly, she said, “You’re not being obnoxious, at least.”

Mikasa chuckled and turned her hand over to lace their fingers together. “I try not to be.” She went very still when Annie looked up at her.

“What?” Annie asked.

“Nothing,” Mikasa replied, sitting back. “Just something stupid.”

“You’ll eventually tell me and you know it. What?”

“Nothing,” Mikasa said again.

“I admitted that I had a sex dream about you on our first date. Fess up.”

Mikasa sighed and said, “I was wondering if I’ll get to kiss you on Christmas.”

Annie stared at her. “Why wouldn’t you?”

“That’s why I said it was stupid.”

She sighed heavily and said, “Unless you’re out of the city for the entire day, you’ll have a chance to kiss me on Christmas. You’re thinking a little ahead.”

“No, this is thinking ahead. What do you want for Christmas?”

Annie hesitated. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Maybe not, but I’d like to.”

She shrugged. “Surprise me, then.”

“You _like_ being hard to shop for.”

“I get very interesting gifts when I say ‘surprise me.’ As long as it’s not lingerie, I’ll probably like it.”

“It couldn’t be lingerie, actually.”

“And why’s that?”

Mikasa smiled, and leaned down to whisper in Annie’s ear, “Because I haven’t had a chance to see you without your clothes on yet. I can’t guess at your sizes.”

Annie smiled as well when she drew back. “You’re bound and determined to get that chance as soon as possible.”

“You’re not?”

Her smile faded as strange anxiety trickled cold down her spine and arms. She held tighter to Mikasa’s hand to steady herself, and said, “Not yet.”

“Okay,” Mikasa said simply, and she kissed Annie’s head again. The waitress returned then, letting them peruse the menu before they ordered. Annie leaned against Mikasa’s shoulder when she had gone, closing her eyes. Though Mikasa looked at her when she did this, she said nothing. She held Annie’s hand in silence and stillness, and only moved to nudge Annie when their orders came. Annie hid her mouth in her hands as she yawned.

“Do you sleep badly all the time?”

“It’s just work. I was gone at a bad time of the year, and now I’m playing catch-up.”

“Why is this time of year bad?”

“We do a lot of work for software companies working in insurance, and the end of the year is hell. Have to make sure everything works by January first.”

“Well,” Mikasa said, pushing Annie’s soup bowl closer, “eat up. Though I’d be okay with letting you sleep on me.”

Huffing a laugh, Annie began to eat. The warmth of the soup made her relax, as did the ability to lean heavily against Mikasa when the urge struck her. When she was full, she leaned against Mikasa and closed her eyes again. A moment of hesitation kept her still, but she soon put her hand on Mikasa’s thigh. She heard Mikasa chuckle, and smile to hear it.

“ _Ladies_.”

Annie raised her brow before opening her eyes. Two young men stood by their table, smiling at them in a manner Annie was sure they thought was charming. The first man began to sit down, but Annie stretched out her legs and blocked him.

“It’s not an open booth,” she said.

“Aw, c’mon, sweetie,” said the second man. “You two look lonesome all alone.”

“Yes, we’re very lonesome on our date,” Annie drawled.

The men snickered, nudging each other with their elbows. One said, “Yeah, like being on a date with a chick isn’t lonesome.”

“Wouldn’t that make the two of you lonesome being on a date with either one of us?” Annie said. “You were doing well enough together without us. Go have a date on your own.”

Mikasa chuckled as the two lurched away from each other. She went quiet when one of the men slammed his hands down on the table, her smile fading.

“Look,” the man said to Annie, “you might think you’re funny, but I’m only going to give you one to make me smile and forget what you said.”

Annie was silent; she blinked slowly.

“You little _dyke_ ,” he snarled, “I said—”

“You don’t want to say anything more than that,” Mikasa said.

“Who the fuck are—”

She drew her badge from her back pocket. “Sina P.D. You’re harassing this woman in front of the officer she’s dating. I would think twice about the next words that come out of your mouth.”

“‘Have a good night’ seems like a good idea,” Annie said. “Probably better than ‘oh God, my teeth, the scary little blonde punched my teeth in.’” She regarded the duo with a hollow stare and a blank expression. The men hurried away when Annie did not blink. Annie relaxed against Mikasa when they had gone out the door, sighing through her nose.

“It’s been a while since that happened to me on a date,” Mikasa said.

“Homophobes, or pulling out your badge?”

“Both. Sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?”

“This usually ruins the date.”

“No, what usually ruins the date is when I get bloody knuckles. This is much better.”

Mikasa laughed softly, putting away her badge and laying her arm over Annie’s shoulders. “I would’ve enjoyed watching you beat them.”

Annie pulled her arm in tight around her, holding her hand. “I know.” She looked up as the waitress came nervously over.

“Are you two all right?” she asked. “We called the police in case they’re still hanging around.”

“We’ll be fine,” Mikasa said. She paused to think, and then smiled, slight and small. “Eren and Armin are on patrol in this area tonight.”

“What difference does that make?” Annie asked.

“It means that if I call either of them and tell them what happened, they’ll find and scare the hell out of those two guys. Eren especially.”

“Why aren’t you doing that right now?” the waitress asked.

“It’s a very good question,” Annie said.

Mikasa shook her head, smiling, and fished her cell phone out of an inner pocket of her coat. She thumbed through her contacts before tapping one and putting the phone to her ear. From so close, Annie could hear the line connect, and a voice began to speak.

“ _Hi Mikasa! Hang on, I’m driving—here’s Eren._ ”

“Hi,” Mikasa said when the static shuffle had stopped.

“ _Hey. What’s up? You said you were going on a date._ ”

“I am on a date. It was interrupted.”

A brief pause came before Eren said, “ _I’m sorry, what?_ ”

“Didn’t you hear over the radio about a disturbance in a restaurant in your area?”

“ _Fucking hell, that was **you**?_ ”

“I didn’t hit anyone this time.”

He sighed, sounding more a snarl. “ _Assholes. Nothing happened to you guys, right?_ ”

“They left when Annie threatened to knock their teeth in.”

“ _You two sound like a match made in heaven. Keep on having your date. You can leave the rest to me and Armin._ ”

“Thank you, Eren. Have a good night.”

“ _You too. I’ll probably catch you in the morning._ ”

She ended the call and slipped the phone back inside her coat.

The waitress sighed. “I am so sorry.”

“It’s not like you asked them to come bother us,” Annie said. “Don’t worry about it.”

“We’ll go before they decide to come back,” Mikasa went on, lifting her arm from Annie. “And don’t try to tell us our food was on the house because of what happened.”

The woman opened her mouth to protest, but Annie gave her a faint smile that made her go quiet. She led them to the register, ringing them up separately. As they left, she bade them a good night. They stepped out into a black cold made lighter by a soft snowfall. Mikasa took one of Annie’s hands, and they set back for the offices.

“What _is_ your schedule?” Annie asked.

“I was on the night shift up until about a month ago,” Mikasa replied. “Now it’s seven to four, Sunday through Thursday.”

“And still no word on the detective position?”

“The chief said it’ll be soon. They want whoever they pick to start after New Year’s.”

“Do you know who you’re up against?”

“I try not to ask.”

“You realize you’re worrying over nothing, right? You’ll get it.”

Mikasa smiled at her. “Thank you. I don’t suppose you’re trying to get a higher position at work.”

“Unless they open one, no. I’m the most senior translator next to Hanji. But they know Japanese and French on top of German, so unless I pick up one of those, I’m not likely to get to their position.”

Mikasa hesitated. “‘They’?”

Annie blinked and looked at her. “Non-binary.”

“Oh.” She smiled again. “I almost want to talk with them in Japanese, but I’m really casual. I don’t know any business Japanese and my formal is awful now.”

“Somehow, I think Hanji would like speaking casually. They’ve been stuck on business calls for hours lately.”

“Do you ever take calls?”

“Sometimes, if Hanji’s doing something else. Christa gets nervous on the phone, so it’s either me or Hanji if it’s German.”

“I can see why she’d get nervous. You’re very sweet to her.”

Annie went quiet. She sighed softly and squeezed Mikasa’s hand. “Yeah.”

“I would be if she was a friend of mine.”

“Ymir wants us all to go out drinking.”

“Really?”

“I told her I’m not letting her get you drunk.”

Mikasa regarded her. “You told them about me punching a tree, didn’t you.”

“Maybe.”

“I’m never going to live down telling you.”

Annie smirked and leaned against her. “Probably not.”

Mikasa laughed, and the sound of it was so clear and bright that Annie chuckled as well. They fell back into a comfortable silence, reaching the office building as the snow continued to fall. Mikasa followed Annie to her car in the building’s underground lot, and they stood still for a long while.

“This isn’t a great thing to say at the start of a relationship,” Annie said, “but I’m probably going to be scarce for the rest of the month.”

“Work deadlines, right? That’s okay.”

She looked at Mikasa, taking in her smile. “I’ll still make it to your classes on Fridays.”

“And our matches?”

“I was worried I’d have to remind you.”

“Give me until next week to completely heal. Then you can beat the hell out of me again.”

“If you learn to dodge, it won’t be so bad.”

“Says the woman who gets inside my defenses too quickly for me to dodge.”

Annie smiled at her, a little crooked but warm. She crooked her finger. When Mikasa stepped closer, she repeated herself. Mikasa leaned down, smiling as Annie curled her fingers in the scarf around her neck. She smiled all the wider when Annie kissed her cheek.

“Your lips are cold, you know,” Mikasa said.

“Yours probably aren’t any warmer.”

“Would you like to find out?”

There was no surprise or reproach in Annie’s face when she looked at Mikasa then. She rubbed her thumb on the scarf for a few moments. “I would.”

Exhaling a laugh, Mikasa said, “All right.” She brushed her fingers against Annie’s cheek before tipping her chin up. Annie leaned in to meet her in the kiss, and she did not mind the slight chill in Mikasa’s lips. She tugged on Mikasa’s scarf when she tried to pull away, kissing her again and keeping her there until they both had warmed. Mikasa looked at her with a blush on her face when they came apart.

“So?” Mikasa asked.

“You were cold, too.” She rocked up on her toes while tugging Mikasa down to kiss her again. “Go home and warm up.”

Mikasa laughed and stroked Annie’s hair. “Drive safe, Annie. Text me whenever you want.”

“You too, Mikasa. Have a good night.” She smiled and waved as Mikasa turned and started away. Getting into her car, Annie sighed after closing the door. She let her head fall back and closed her eyes. Her lips tingled. Taking a deep breath, she opened her eyes and started the car. She kept an eye out for Mikasa, but did not see her again by the time she had gotten onto the road. She drove home carefully, and she was aware of her smile the entire way.


	4. try, fail, try again (1/2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the holidays draw in, some attempts to spend more time together work out for Annie and Mikasa, some fall through, and one does both at the same time.
> 
> Part one of two for chapter size.

Annie woke unsure where she was, only grounded when she looked over and saw her bedside clock and its glowing numbers. Taking a deep breath only sent a tremor down her spine. She groaned, putting her hands over her face.

“Jesus _Christ_ ,” she said into her palms. She looked at the clock again, rubbing her eyes when she recognized that it was two twenty-five in the morning. She rolled over onto her other side, but the shifting of her thighs made her whimper. Again, she put her hands over her face.

This proved an unwise decision, as it gave her mind reason to recall her dream. Annie lay there and thought about how Mikasa’s lips had tasted in her dream, and how firm they had been pressed to her throat. On remembering how warm Mikasa’s hands had been on her body, trailing from neck to breasts, and then down between her legs, she rolled onto her stomach to muffle her whimper in her pillow.

“No, it’s not like I could go a fucking _week_ between dreams,” she grumbled. “Not even five days. And it’s always the middle of the night.” She put her hands on the back of her head. “Why didn’t I just invite her over?” Even as she said it, something backpedalled in her mind, leaving nerves in its wake. She went still and quiet, feeling through throbbing between her legs. Slowly, she closed her eyes and let herself go back to the dream.

It had been straightforward, only Mikasa in her bed seeking to unravel her with fingers and tongue. Annie brought a hand away from her head, trailing it down under her quilt and up her shirt. She brushed her fingers back and forth over her nipple, imagining Mikasa’s tongue doing the same. A groan built in her throat, and she dragged her nails down her stomach, minding the scar thereupon.

The memory of how Mikasa had slowly, achingly slid her sleeping pants and underwear down her hips and off her legs make Annie tug them off beneath the quilt. For a few moments, she replayed the instant when Mikasa pushed two fingers inside of her, letting the fire pooled in the base of her spine grow larger. Only when her breathing had deepened did she begging to stroke at herself, fingers slipping in her wetness. Brushing her clit made her shudder and moan, toes curling.

Annie turned onto her side, putting her free hand over her mouth. Keeping quiet, she played with herself until she felt her skin burn. The rush of her breath over her hand was loud in the dark, as was the muffled whine she let out as she pushed a finger inside herself. Though Mikasa had built her slowly, lifting her eyes to gaze at her while dragging her tongue over her clit, Annie could not do the same. She ached too much, and she brought her hand from her mouth to rub hard and fast at her clit, thrusting her finger.

In the moment before she came, she whimpered, “ _Mikasa_.” She trembled as she tightened, and let out a long, shaky moan. Out of breath, heart rattling in her chest, she opened her eyes again. For a long while, she lay breathing quietly. She looked at her clock, watching it change from two fifty-three to two fifty-four. Before it reached two fifty-seven, she sighed and pulled her underwear and pants back on. Shivering despite her heavier clothes, she got out of bed to wash off her hands.

When she got back under the covers, she curled up tight, hands on her stomach. She rubbed idly at where she near the scar to be, but stopped when she checked the clock again and saw it was three oh-two.

Annie pulled the quilt over her head and muttered, “Go to sleep already.” She managed to do as she said, but woke groggy and disoriented when her alarm went off at five. On remembering why she was groggy, she buried her head under her pillow and stayed perfectly still and quiet for a few more minutes. She went about her morning quickly, partly in an effort to get to the warm office soon and partly to distract herself.

It was fifteen minutes early that she arrived, and she yawned on leaving the elevator. She went to her office, but stopped dead in the doorway because Christa was sitting in the guest chair.

Christa grinned at her baffled look. “How was your date?”

“Fine,” Annie replied, going around her desk and sitting down. She raised a brow when Christa sat forward, looking eager. “What?”

“Come on, tell me about it! Did she come in her uniform?”

Despite her mood, Annie smiled. “No, normal clothes. Though she did pull out her badge.”

The smile fell off Christa’s face. “Oh no, really? What happened?”

She shrugged. “Two guys tried to interrupt our date and one called me a dyke. She pulled out her badge and they ran.”

Christa sighed. “I’m sorry. But I guess it’s better than she scared them off instead of you hitting anyone. Was it a good date other than that?”

“Yeah.”

“Why do you sound cranky, then?”

She put a hand over her eyes and pressed hard. “Because I woke up in the middle of the night and didn’t get back to sleep for a while.”

Concern filled Christa’s voice when she said, “Oh, _Annie_. Do you have a lot of dreams about the break-in?”

A low, hard sigh left her. “You and Mikasa _both_.”

“Huh?”

“It wasn’t about that.”

“But it was a dream.” She thought, and then drew a small, sharp breath. “Wow, you’re having your sexy dreams about her already?”

Annie jerked and felt herself go red.

Christa took this as an answer, blushing as well. “This must be awkward.”

“You asking about my dreams about Mikasa, or _you_ asking about my dreams about Mikasa?” Annie grumbled.

“The second, I guess,” Christa said. “Did it only happen last night?”

“Christa…”

“Oh dear. It’s happened before.”

“ _Christa_.”

“What? I want to help!”

“By asking me about my sex dreams of my new girlfriend?”

“Well…when you put it that way, it sounds bad.”

Annie raised a brow and said nothing.

Christa thought again, and then smiled. “You should tell her.”

“Wha— _why_?”

“I liked it when you told _me_.”

She rubbed her temple. “It was weird enough when I wound up telling her on our _first_ date. It hasn’t even been a week.”

Christa grinned. “You _really_ like her.”

“I’ll thank you to never mention a word of this to Ymir.”

She pouted. “I don’t kiss and tell, and I know Ymir would be awful to you. But I still think you should tell Mikasa.”

“Let me repeat myself,” Annie said flatly. “I already told her on our first date that I had a dream about her. I’m not telling her that I had another dream less than a week later.”

“Why not?”

“Why _would_ I?”

“Maybe because there’s nothing wrong with it and you being cranky instead of admitting that you’re thinking about her is going to give her the wrong idea?” She sighed at the way Annie frowned and turned away. “Annie, you did this to me, too. Did she get offended when you told her before?”

“No.”

“I think she’d appreciate it if you were honest with her,” Christa said, soft and gentle. “Even if you don’t tell her all the details.”

Annie remained silent, eyes averted.

“You could text her to have a good day, at least.”

She drummed her fingers on her desk. She looked at her purse, but did not move.

“Oh for God’s sake, text your girlfriend.” When Annie looked at her, she said, “I’d kick you if you weren’t behind that desk.”

Her lips twitched into a smile, but only briefly. Hesitating, she retrieved her phone and stared at it. Unlocking it showed the time to be six fifty-three. She went into her messages, rereading the last message from Mikasa. After a moment, she tapped out a simple text: _Have a good day._

Still, she did not hit send. Biting the inside of her cheek, she deleted the message, hastily typed a new one, and sent it before she could change her mind. She set down her phone.

“What did you say?” asked Christa.

“Just…that I had a dream about her and that I hope she has a good day.” She startled when her phone chimed, picking it back up. Her eyes widened as she read Mikasa’s reply, and she felt her face grow hot again.

“Oh wow, what did _she_ say?”

“Uh. N-nothing. Just to have a good day.”

“You are the worst liar ever, Annie Leonhardt. What did she say?”

Annie opened her mouth, struggled for words, and finally mumbled, “That she dreamed about me too.”

Christa saw the way Annie stopped herself from continuing. She said, “ _And_?”

“ _Nothing_ ,” Annie said, heat creeping to her ears.

“I’ll steal your phone.”

She sighed, closed her eyes, and said, “And that she had a hard time going back to sleep.”

Christa went silent. After a moment, she softly said, “ _Wow_. You two are great for each other.”

“Shut up and go work.”

She smiled broadly because there had been no heat in Annie’s voice, and though Annie had turned away, she could still see the small, pleased smile that had curved Annie’s lips. She rose from the chair, rounded the desk, and gently bumped her head against Annie’s. When Annie looked at her, she hugged her.

“You should text her more later,” Christa said. She left Annie’s office with a wave, smile still in place.

Annie reread the message in silence, eventually locking her phone and setting it aside. She did not unlock it again until lunch, when she had decided on what to say next.

————

“Boo.”

The word was said softly, and she did not startle on hearing it. On seeing who was in her doorway, though, she did. “Mikasa?”

Mikasa smiled, lifting a hand in greeting as she stepped inside.

“What’re you doing here?” Annie asked, setting down her pen.

“Because,” Mikasa said, “I had a feeling you wouldn’t stop for dinner when you told me you were staying late.” She brought her other hand out from behind her back, revealing a plastic bag holding two large covered bowls.

Annie stared. “You brought me food?” When Mikasa nodded, all bright eyes and cheer, she did not try to stop her smile. She moved the papers piled in front of her off to the side, leaning forward as Mikasa took the bowls from the bag and set them down. Taking the chopsticks Mikasa dug out of the bag, she asked, “Chinese?”

“There’s this great little Japanese restaurant I know of. I love getting people to try this.”

“‘This’ being what?”

Mikasa popped the cover off of her bowl, showing Annie the thin slices of beef and the rice beneath it. “Beef bowls.”

“What’s the Japanese word for it?” Annie asked.

Without so much as a hint of effort, Mikasa heaved the heavy guest chair up and over to sit beside the desk. She took the chopsticks Annie offered her, breaking them apart after tearing open the paper. “ _Gyūdon_. It’s really good, and I ate it way too often in Japan. Go on, try it.”

Annie had no intention of hesitating in the first place, and the scent simply served to remind her of how long it had been since lunch. She began to eat, but paused to savor what was on her tongue. Looking up let her discover the knowing smile on Mikasa’s face. She smirked. “I vote we go there on our next date.”

“Knew you’d like it,” Mikasa said, starting to eat as well. It was in a soft silence that they ate, both looking out the window into the black night sky. As they came down to the last bits of rice, though, they jumped at a knock on the door. They turned to find Hanji standing there, brow raised but smiling.

“I don’t usually find you with guests, Annie,” they said. “Is this your new girlfriend?”

“She is. Hanji, Mikasa Ackerman. Mikasa, Hanji Zoë.”

Mikasa lifted her hand again and said, “ _Yoroshiku_.”

Hanji boggled. They came inside, brows rising. “ _Kimi wa nihon-jin na no_?”

“ _Shihanbun dake da_.” She smiled nervously. “ _Hanashi-kata wa kajuaru sugiru darō_?”

“ _Ma, kajuaru ga ii’n ja nai_? _Kimi wa kaishai’in ja nai kara. De, nan no shigoto_?”

“ _Keisatsu_.”

“ _Uwa, sugoi’n da_! _Hajimete au’n da_!” They sat down on the edge of the desk, offering Mikasa their hand. “ _Ja, yoroshiku_.” When Mikasa had taken their hand, they pulled her in close to speak in a false whisper. “ _Ani-chan, toki doki gokigennaname kara, ganbare_.”

“Okay, you’re not allowed to tell her things about me in Japanese,” Annie said with a frown. “Even if you’re my boss.”

“All they said was that you’re cranky sometimes,” Mikasa said, chuckling.

“Translator’s honor,” Hanji said, putting their hand over their heart.

Annie raised a brow, but could not fight against both of their smiles. She sighed and sat back. “Are you actually going home before me, Hanji?”

Their brows rose, eyes widening behind their glasses. “What time is it?”

“Six twenty,” Mikasa said, checking her watch.

“Oh.” They started to fidget with nerves. “Petra’s going to kill me. I said I’d get home before seven tonight.”

“You can go,” Annie said lightly. “Our contact at Trinity is keeping me posted, and their transition is fine. I’ll stay a little longer.”

They considered this, drumming their fingers on the back of their neck. After a moment, they stood and started for the door. “I’ll be connected at home, so tell them they can reach me if they need to.”

“Say hi to Petra,” Annie said as Hanji departed.

“You’re going to stay even longer?” Mikasa asked.

“Our contact is running tests, and I don’t want to go if there’s an issue.” She looked away from waking up her computer to see Mikasa smiling at her. “What?”

“You’re lovely when you focus.”

She spat out the first thing that came to mind without thinking it through. “So was I focused in your dream?”

Mikasa stared, shoulders twitching once. Though she blushed darkly, she said, “You were. Um…was I?”

Annie felt her face burn, wondering if her blush was worse. “Yeah.” They were silent for a time, both very interested in the view out the window.

Mikasa eventually spoke. “I don’t usually have dreams like that, so…I see why you were so embarrassed before.” She chuckled, soft and low with anxiety. “I thought about calling you.”

“What, in the middle of the night?”

“That’s why I decided not to. Well, that, and I didn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable.”

Annie held her breath and then sighed. She looked at Mikasa and said, “Lean over a little.” She rolled her chair closer when Mikasa had down so, and kissed her before she could ask a question. On drawing back, she said, “Not yet. And text me first when we get there.”

“Okay,” Mikasa said, smiling. She lay her hand over the one Annie had set on the desk, slipping her fingers very slightly up Annie’s sleeve. Quietly, she said, “I really wanted to hear your voice.”

All at once, she was blindsided by the thought of having Mikasa’s voice, low with want, come through her phone in the dark of her bedroom. Her throat closed up and her mouth went dry. She coughed, rubbed her eyes with her free hand, and said, “Mikasa, _Jesus_.”

“Sorry,” Mikasa said, shoulders hunching as her head dropped.

“No, fuck, it’s fine. You just keep making me imagine things.” She brushed a few stray strands of Mikasa’s hair back behind her ear. “Not that I don’t like what I’m thinking of.”

Mikasa’s smile returned. “I promise to not be hands-y if I need a partner in class on Friday.” She blinked when Annie waved briefly at the door, only turning in time to catch Hanji rushing past. Somewhat hesitantly, she asked, “Do you want me to go, too?”

“Not really, but I know it’s late and you probably haven’t gone to the gym yet.” She smiled slightly. “You can go.”

“Can we kiss again before I do?”

She let out a brief laugh. “Sure.” She leaned into a kiss that Mikasa made more chaste than the one before. Eventually, she closed her hand on the lapel of Mikasa’s coat and pulled her in closer to feel the heat of her lips. She let go reluctantly; she knew there was a shade of regret in both of their faces when they came away.

“Let me know if you’re ever stuck late and need something to eat,” Mikasa said, rising and returning the chair to its normal place. “I can sneak in a visit when I bring it to you.”

“That sounds like a plan,” Annie said. They hesitated, Mikasa’s knee twitching as though unsure where to go. Before she could move, Annie said, “Thanks. I’m glad you came.”

Mikasa seemed to take heart from this, and she smiled once more. “So am I. Have a good night, Annie. Don’t stay too much longer.”

“‘Night, Mikasa.” She waved as Mikasa left, waiting a minute before tossing the remains of their dinner into her small trashcan. Taking a moment, she sat back in her chair and thought of nothing in particular. Annie drew a slow breath, pulled her papers back over, and stayed an hour more.

————

It was with a great sense of relief that Annie shut down her computer at four o’clock on Friday. Almost nothing had gone wrong in their contact’s testing, and Hanji had told her and Christa to leave on time. Thinking of her gym bag stowed away in her car made her smile; thinking of seeing Mikasa in her class made her smile widen. As she stood to pull on her coat, though, someone knocked on her door. Her smile slid from her face on seeing Ymir standing there.

“Yo,” Ymir said, smiling pleasantly.

“Hi,” Annie replied. “Here for Christa?”

“Yep. I came to spirit her away for dinner.”

Annie looked her up and down, finding her in clean slacks and shoes, and a button down shirt beneath her coat. Her hair, usually a mess, was tidy and pulled back with a hair clip. Raising a brow, Annie said, “You’re not going to the diner, I assume.”

Ymir grinned. “Nope. The nice Italian place downtown. Christa said she loves it, so I got a reservation last month.”

She smiled without thinking. “Does she know you did that?”

“Nah, I wanted to surprise her.”

A brief chuckle left her. “It’s a good surprise. She’ll be happy.”

Ymir’s smile faltered in response.

“What?”

“You’re not all pissy about me going out with Christa?”

“No,” Annie said. “She said you make her happy.”

“Yeah, but you’re _always_ pissy about me and her going out.” She thought, and then grinned crookedly. “Oh, I get it. You and your girlfriend fucked that night after your date.”

Her brows twitched before one rose. “I beg your pardon?”

“You’re in a good mood because you finally got laid again, right?”

Annie stared at her, face impassive. After a moment, she said, “No. She just cheers me up, and I get to see her tonight.”

“Uh huh,” Ymir said, utter disbelief in her face and voice. She snickered when Annie remained unperturbed. “Hey, my offer stands for us all to go out drinking. I bet it’d be hella funny to see Christa and Mikasa drunk together.”

“I wouldn’t let you make Mikasa get more tattoos.”

Ymir laughed outright. “Okay, fine. But think about it. Christa really wants to hang out with you.”

“And you?” Annie asked.

She shrugged, but smiled. “You’re kinda cute when you’re not so cranky all the time, so why not?” She turned at the soft sound of small footsteps, and stepped to one side when Christa stopped in the doorway. “Where’d you run off to?”

“I had to ask Hanji about something,” Christa said. She took in Ymir’s appearance, eyes brightening. “You look so good! Why are you all dressed up for dinner?”

“You gotta dress up for that Ambra place.”

Christa stopped moving. Annie turned away to muffle her laughter in her hand. Quiet with surprise, Christa said, “You have a reservation there?”

“Yeah. You like that place, right?”

For a few seconds, Christa said nothing. She then caught Ymir by the front of her coat and pulled her down to wrap her arms around her neck. Annie heard her giggle, “You are so sweet.” She let go only enough to kiss Ymir, but drew back quickly with a guilty glance toward Annie.

“Just kiss her,” Annie said. “It’s funny to see you on your toes and her bent over like that.”

Christa looked baffled for a few seconds, but soon smiled broadly. She took Ymir by the hand and said, “Go have a good night with Mikasa.”

“Enjoy dinner,” Annie said, smiling slightly. She waved as they left, taking her time in cleaning off her desk and checking her phone. She reread the messages Mikasa had sent over the last few days until she was certain that Ymir and Christa had gotten onto an elevator. Hitching her purse high on her shoulder, she made her way to her car and drove off to the gym.

The snow had driven off some patrons, as there were fewer people in the locker room and in the gym on the whole. Annie took pleasure in not having an audience as she shadowboxed to warm up, and she left her hoodie down as she did. She threw glances at the clocks scattered around the gym, feeling a little foolish when she caught herself thinking that time was slow. Still, she did stop early to go to Mikasa’s class ahead of time.

When she arrived, her cheer vanished at the morose expression on Mikasa’s face as she stared at a wall. She closed the door quietly, saying, “Mikasa?”

Mikasa jumped and quickly got to her feet. She smiled, but stopped when Annie frowned at her. “What?”

“Why do you look like you got fired?” Annie asked. “Did you not get the detective job?”

“Oh—no, that still hasn’t been announced.”

“Then what?”

She was quiet, so clearly uncomfortable that it made Annie nervous. Mikasa hesitated, then gave Annie a hug. She asked, “Can we talk about it after class?”

“Yeah,” Annie said quietly. When Mikasa let go, she asked, “Are you okay, at least?”

“I…yeah, I’m okay.”

She did not fully believe her, but went to take off her shoes as other early arrivals came in. For the entire class, Mikasa rarely met her eyes, but stayed remarkably close to her. At the same time, no one looked at her strangely or asked if she was all right. The class ended with the other women bowing to Mikasa before leaving her and Annie by themselves.

“Okay, what’s going on?” Annie asked. “You’re acting like you’re scared to leave me alone.”

Mikasa winced. “I’m sorry. It’s just…do you remember the two other officers that responded to the break-in? Armin and Eren?”

“The two guys you called on our date, I know. What about them?”

“They were on a plainclothes assignment and got assaulted last night. Armin’s not too hurt, but Eren took the brunt of it to try and keep him safe. They broke Eren’s leg before a group of civilians saw what was happening and helped.”

Something in her chest slowly twisted at the way Mikasa looked then, sad and quiet. Her feet faltered, and so she asked, “They didn’t get away, did they?”

“No, the people that helped restrained them until other officers arrived.”

Again, she was uncertain. She asked, “Are they good friends?”

She nodded. “We were roommates during academy because none of us made enough to live on our own. Eren calls us his brother and sister.”

The thing in her chest wrenched sharply. She looked at the floor. She breathed, swallowed slowly, and went to Mikasa. She held Mikasa with arms no longer used to what she did, putting her head under Mikasa’s chin. When Mikasa went still, Annie mumbled, “Sorry. I’m not good at this.” She started to let go, but Mikasa wrapped her arms around her before she could do so.

“Thank you,” Mikasa said. She drew her in closer. “I was worried about you.”

“Why? I sit in an office all day?”

“I know, but it’s hard to not worry about people you care about when others of them were hurt.” She put her hand on Annie’s head, but paused at the dampness of her hair.

“If you’re grossed out by me being sweaty after working out, we’re going to have to talk.”

She sputtered with laughter. “No, I’m not. I just sort of forgot.” She held her tight a few moments longer, murmuring, “I’m glad you’re here.”

Because some of the tension had left Mikasa’s face, Annie smiled when she was released. She pushed at Mikasa’s side until she winced. “So you’re not up for another match.”

She pushed Annie’s hand away. “Not quite.”

“Is that restaurant you got dinner from on Tuesday open tonight?”

“It is. Want to have dinner?”

“Yeah. I can drive us so you can drink.”

Mikasa smiled gently, but without much heart. “I try really hard not to drink over my stress. But,” she said, tapping Annie’s nose, “ _you_ can drink.”

She opened her mouth, but struggled to find words.

“I know the way to your place,” Mikasa remarked. “I wouldn’t mind.”

It was with a rueful smile that Annie sighed quietly. “Between you and Ymir, I’m going to be drunk for a month. Sure, as long as they have something good to drink.”

“They do, and especially on Fridays. Come on, showers first.” She led the way, but slowed down to catch hold of Annie’s hand. They went to the locker room with their fingers laced together, parting to shower off and change. Annie finished first, and waited at the entrance to the locker room with her hands in the pocket of her hoodie. She shivered at the sensation of Mikasa dragging her fingernails down behind her ear.

“What was that for?” Annie asked, rubbing her ear and feeling her face burn.

“To see you blush,” Mikasa said. She shifted the backpack on her shoulders a bit higher before taking Annie’s hand. They went out into the parking lot and to Mikasa’s car. She did not wait for the heater to warm before driving them away. Annie kept her hands in her pocket for warmth, looking at Mikasa every so often. Mikasa kept her eyes on the road, clearly wary of lingering snow, and twitched visibly when the sound of a siren could be heard past the faint music on the radio.

“You don’t chase sirens, do you?” Annie asked.

“Not since the chief ordered me not to a year ago.” When Annie was silent, she looked over. The baffled look on Annie’s face made her giggle. “I won’t run out on any dates, I promise.”

“You are ridiculous,” Annie said with fondness enough that Mikasa only laughed. She rubbed at her stomach a few moments before taking her hand from her pocket. Though she paused, she reached over and lay her hand on Mikasa’s thigh. When Mikasa took her hand, she smiled and relaxed into her seat. The heater had warmed the car by the time Mikasa pulled into a side alley parking lot, and Annie was not pleased to get out. Quickly, they went inside a restaurant with its sliding door half-hidden by hanging red cloth.

“ _Irasshai_!” a young woman said, coming away from a far door. “For two?” They nodded, and she picked up two menus and led them to a booth table far from the chill of the door. After only a brief deliberation did they order, Mikasa with a large bowl of ramen and a soda and Annie with another beef bowl and a draft beer.

“So what happens when you get drunk?” Mikasa asked when the glass was set down before Annie.

Annie was silent while the woman left, idly running a finger through the condensation on the glass. She wiped her finger on her jeans, muttering something.

“What?”

“I get…cuddly.”

“You get cuddly?”

“Better than getting rowdy. One wonders why Ymir wants us all to go out drinking when Christa always starts a fight if she gets too drunk.”

“And you finished them, right?”

“Remember what I said about bloody knuckles and ruined dates.” She took a long sip of her beer. Swallowing, she sighed and said, “I can get drunk on this.”

Mikasa chuckled, sitting back to watch her until their food arrived. They ate slowly to savor it, and slowly enough that Annie noticed Mikasa’s attention drifting slightly. She leaned in and spotted the TV hanging on a wall.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Reruns of a show that’s been running for a couple of decades in Japan. It’s a challenge show that…I think less than seven men have ever won.”

Annie watched for a time, brow slightly raised, as contenders tried to overcome challenges that made no sense to her. “What’s the last thing they have to do?”

“Climb a rope in under a minute. I think it’s something over a hundred feet long.” She chuckled as she turned to Annie. “My grandmother showed it to me when I was little and I was adamant that I would go win it when I was an adult.”

Annie took a drink and leaned against Mikasa’s side. “Did you try when you were in Japan?”

“Thought really hard about it, but I didn’t want to cut that many classes. And I thought my grandmother would be startled to see me on TV when she tuned in.”

She snickered. “Oh, I would’ve paid to see you throw yourself at those things.” She snorted when a man fumbled in a leap off a springboard and plunged into the murky water below. “Bet you would’ve won.”

“I’d like to think I would.” She patted Annie’s knee when she snickered again. She thought for a moment, waiting until Annie had set down her mostly empty glass before leaning down and in. She pressed a kiss to Annie’s ear, smiling when Annie trembled. Very quietly, she asked, “Which is more sensitive, your ears or your neck?”

Annie sighed, but said, “My neck, but if you start kissing it in a restaurant, I will kick your ass in the ring so hard you’ll have to call in.”

Mikasa chuckled and ran her fingernails along the back of Annie’s neck before setting her hands lightly on the table. “I’ll be patient.”

“Somehow, I doubt that,” Annie said, and she drank down the rest of her beer. She settled heavily against Mikasa, getting her hand between them to slip her fingers in one of Mikasa’s belt loops.

“You can’t be drunk on that one glass, can you?”

“No,” said Annie. “Just buzzed. I like doing this.”

Mikasa put an arm around Annie, hand coming to rest on her hip. “I do, too.”

Annie smirked. “Sap.”

“And proud.” She looked up as the young woman returned, tapping Annie’s hip until she did the same.

“Can I get you ladies anything else?” she asked.

“I’ll take another of what I had,” Mikasa said.

“Ditto,” said Annie.

“Okay, it’ll be just a little while,” the woman said. “I’ll be right out with new drinks.”

Mikasa picked up the glass left behind. “You’re a lightweight, aren’t you.”

“I am, in fact, a very short woman with a low alcohol tolerance.”

“You also get a little wordy when you drink.”

Annie hummed faintly, resting her head against Mikasa’s shoulder. She kept her fingers tangled in Mikasa’s belt loop, even when another beer was set in front of her and a soda before Mikasa. After taking another drink and setting the glass down, she inched closer until their legs were pressed together and she could hook her foot behind Mikasa’s ankle.

“God, you’re warm,” Annie muttered.

“You were _not_ kidding about being cuddly.”

“This isn’t as bad as I can get.”

“How bad have you gotten?”

Annie thought a while, running her fingers through the condensation on the glass. “It was Christa’s birthday after she moved in with me. For some reason, we got a bottle of vodka, and I spent the night in her lap. I think we slept on the couch because I wouldn’t get up.”

“Well, I’d be able to carry you to bed as long as you don’t start fighting.”

She smiled. “I know. If you can bench press me, you could probably carry me anywhere.”

Mikasa hummed two tones to agree, laying her hand on Annie’s thigh. Timidly, giving Annie time to push her away, she began to rub at the seam of her jeans along her inner thigh, creeping higher. Annie did not move beyond tightening her grip on the belt loop. Very abruptly, Mikasa stopped and took her hand away.

“What?” Annie asked.

“I’m being impatient. I’m sorry.”

Annie lifted her head to look at her, but Mikasa would not meet her eyes. She could not think of what to say, and so took another drink. They were quiet and still until their new orders came. Eating allowed them to remain silent, looking at the TV every so often to distract themselves. All too soon, though, their food and drink ran out, and they sat in an awkward silence. Head thick with what felt like soaked cotton, Annie found no reason not to abandon the belt loop in favor of wrapping her arms around one of Mikasa’s and holding tight.

Mikasa looked down in time to see Annie bury her face in her shoulder. A little helplessly, she chuckled and asked, “Drunk now?”

“I’d probably be in your lap if we weren’t somewhere public.” She inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly, and relaxed against her. She pressed her fingers against Mikasa’s arm and said something too quietly to hear.

“What?”

She tugged her down to get close to her ear. “You could’ve kept going.”

Mikasa said nothing. An expression Annie could not parse came to her face before she looked away. When she turned back, she wore a small smile. “Come on, let’s get you home.” She waited until Annie had released her arm before sliding out of the booth, and steadied Annie because she took to wobbly feet. They paid separately, Annie having mild difficulties signing her receipt.

The drive to Annie’s apartment was one they did not speak in, and they did not look at each other. When they arrived, though, Mikasa found an empty spot, parked, and turned off the car.

“What’re you doing?” Annie asked.

“I don’t want you to fall.” She unbuckled her seatbelt, but startled when she saw Annie already out her door. “Annie, wait a second! I saw ice on the—”

The soles of Annie’s sneakers hit a slick patch of ice under snow, and she slammed down hard on her back when her feet slipped out from beneath her. For a few moments, she was too stunned to move. Rolling onto her side, she dimly muttered, “Ow.”

“Annie? Are you all right?”

She looked up to see Mikasa come around the car and kneel down by her. She did not struggle when Mikasa carefully ran her fingers over the back of her head, only blinking at Mikasa’s sigh.

“No blood,” Mikasa said, showing her fingers. “Do you feel any more drunk?”

Annie shook her head. “I think my hood kept my head off the ground.” She looked around briefly as though confirming where she was. She looked back to Mikasa. “I just slipped on ice like a drunken jackass, didn’t I.”

Mikasa smiled and tucked the hair that had slipped out of Annie’s bun back behind her ears. “A little bit, yeah.”

Annie sighed, head falling forward. “Fantastic.”

Mikasa struggled to not laugh, still giggling in the end. She took to her feet, planting them solidly, and picked Annie bodily off the ground. After setting Annie on the trunk of the car, she retrieved their bags from the backseat. Considering what she held, she gave Annie her backpack and said, “Wear this.”

Seeing no reason to refuse, Annie pulled it on.

“Where’re your keys?”

“A little pocket on the inside of my purse.” She watched Mikasa fish them out, and stared blankly while she locked the car and came to her.

“Climb on,” said Mikasa, turning her back to Annie.

“You’re seriously gonna carry me?”

“Unless you don’t want to cuddle anymore.”

She sighed, long-suffering, and beckoned her closer. She wrapped her arms around Mikasa’s neck, wriggling slightly when Mikasa caught her under her knees and lifted her off the car. Without so much as a pause to arrange everything, Mikasa strode off through the parking lot and snow. Annie held tight, cheek against the back of Mikasa’s head. She did not pay attention to the way Mikasa avoided icy patches, too busy wondering if what she smelled on Mikasa was from her hair or her skin. She burrowed up against her all the same.

“Here we go,” Mikasa said, unlocking and opening the door. She stepped inside quickly, closing and locking the door behind them. “Okay, get down to get your shoes off.”

Annie, neatly and simply, pushed her shoes off with her feet alone and let them drop to the floor.

“Not done cuddling, then?”

“You offered to carry me.”

“Fair point.” She took off her sneakers, setting the bags in her hands down. Still carrying Annie, she found the thermostat and turned on the heat. Because Annie held her tighter, she laughed. “Sorry, but you’re not cuddly when you’re drunk. You’re a koala.”

Annie grumbled against her hair.

“Okay, a cranky koala.”

All she could come up with was a long groan of a sigh.

The teasing left Mikasa’s voice for tenderness as she said, “Come on.” She carried Annie into her bedroom, turning on the bedside lamp. Though she tried to set Annie down on the bed, Annie held on steadfastly.

“I want to get you some water,” Mikasa said.

It took a few moments, but Annie let herself be lowered onto the bed. She handed Mikasa her backpack, mumbling, “There’s bottled water in the fridge.” As Mikasa left, Annie sighed and fell onto her side on the bed. The quilt was cold beneath her, its pattern subdued in shades of deep blue and pinpoints of white for stars. She ran her fingers along the stitching, barely flinching when Mikasa returned and lay a hand on her hip.

“You’re not feeling like you’re going to throw up, are you?” Mikasa asked, a touch of nerves in her voice.

She shook her head, sitting up. “I didn’t drink _that_ much, lightweight or no.” She twisted off the cap on the bottle Mikasa handed her, drinking slowly. “Sorry. You don’t have to stay and watch me.”

“And what if I feel like getting cuddled more?”

Annie glanced up at her. She looked at Mikasa’s smile, felt the way she stroked her hair. After putting the cap back on and setting the bottle on the nightstand, she grabbed Mikasa by the front of her sweater and pulled them both down to the bed. Quickly, she tucked herself beneath Mikasa’s chin and draped an arm over her side. She did not grumble with Mikasa taking out the pins holding her hair in a bun, only relaxing to the sensation of Mikasa petting her loosed hair.

“You still have some wet spots,” Mikasa said, voice soft for the dimness of the room and the warmth of their closeness.

Annie shrugged one shoulder. “Better than soaked.” She put her forehead to Mikasa’s neck, breathing in. “What am I smelling?”

“Vanilla bodywash, probably.”

“Sounds right.” Mikasa giggled; she blinked. “What?”

“When we first met, did you ever think that we’d be lying here on your bed a few months later?”

“Not really.” She traced a meaningless pattern on Mikasa’s stomach with her free hand. “I think I was attracted to you after your visit when I was on the mend. Just didn’t want to think about it.”

“I’m glad you’re thinking about it now,” said Mikasa, and she pressed a kiss to Annie’s head. She meant to pull Annie in a little closer, but was stopped by Annie closing her hand tight in her sweater. Before she could speak, Annie shifted to press her lips to Mikasa’s throat. It was gentle enough that Mikasa did not react. She ran her fingers through Annie’s hair, eyes half-closed.

The next kiss was not as gentle, nor was it chaste. Annie kissed her harder and nipped at her skin over and over To soothe where she had bitten, she licked long lines up Mikasa’s neck. Mikasa trembled, drawing a breath.

“Guess your neck’s pretty sensitive, too,” Annie said. She brought her arm back from Mikasa’s side, intent on reaching up her sweater while kissing her neck.

Mikasa caught her hand. “Annie, stop.”

She went still. After a moment, she asked, “Why?”

“Because you’re drunk. I’m not having sex with someone who’s drunk.”

“Barely drunk,” Annie muttered.

“Still drunk.” She gently pulled Annie up to look her in the eye. “The last thing I want is for you to regret that we had sex. So not tonight, please.”

Annie looked at her a long while. She exhaled and moved closer to put her chin on Mikasa’s shoulder, wrapping her arms around her. Softly, she asked, “Stay the night, at least?”

“All right,” Mikasa said. She managed to look past Annie to the alarm clock on the nightstand, reading the time “It’s already past ten. Why don’t we go to sleep?”

“Sure,” Annie mumbled. “Turn off the heat and come back.” As Mikasa did this, Annie pushed the covers aside and slipped under them at the far side of the bed. She lay with her back to the door, blinking and looking over her shoulder because Mikasa’s footsteps stopped in the door.

“Are you angry?” Mikasa asked.

“No. I haven’t slept with someone taller than me in a while, and I want you behind me.” She turned back. “Your turn for cuddling.”

Mikasa laughed quietly and got into bed. She pulled the covers up and over them both, and then drew Annie back up against her chest. Before Annie settled too much, she reached over and turned out the lamp. She kissed Annie’s cheek before wrapping her up in her arms and murmuring, “Good night, Annie.”

Already half-asleep, Annie said, “‘Night, Mikasa,” and closed her eyes.

————

Waking in her jeans with her socks still on and arms holding her tight brought the memory crashing straight into Annie when she opened her eyes the following morning. She lay in the dim light of her bedroom, staring at the wall. More than anything, she wanted to put her head through the wall, for however long of a respite she would receive before Mikasa got her loose. She did not flinch when she heard Mikasa take a deep breath behind her, her chest and stomach pressing briefly into Annie’s back.

Voice groggy, Mikasa asked, “Annie?”

“I’m awake.”

“Really? I thought I’d have to make you get up.”

Annie hummed flatly, closing her eyes when Mikasa kissed the back of her head. She lay still and silent, not knowing what to do otherwise. She felt Mikasa’s hold on her grow weaker.

“Are you angry?” Mikasa asked.

“No,” she replied, rubbing her eyes. Words came to her, but she fumbled for how to say them. She settled for squeezing one of Mikasa’s hands before swinging her legs out and off the bed. Glancing back only long enough to catch Mikasa’s eyes, she headed for the door and said, “I’ll make breakfast.”

Though she did not stay long, she still heard Mikasa sigh before she turned the heater on. Annie stared at her feet, trying to ignore the twisting in her gut. Before Mikasa could catch her doing this, she went to the kitchen and got out everything to make french toast. She knew when Mikasa sat down at the dining table, but only spoke to ask how many slices she wanted.

Somehow, this was how they spent their morning, in silence and eyes turned away. For the few times she looked at Annie, Mikasa could not determine what lay in the flat, hard line of her mouth. What made her eyes so dark was not defined, and the smoothness of her movement gave nothing away. Briefly, she wanted to say something about how she found Annie’s bedhead to be as adorable as she’d imagined, but she chose to hold her tongue.

They cleaned and took only enough time to brush their hair before heading back to the gym. Mikasa parked near Annie’s car, took a breath, and opened her mouth.

“Thanks,” Annie muttered, halfway out the door. She grabbed her bad and her purse from the backseat and tried to slip away. Mikasa’s tight hold on her wrist when she caught up stopped her immediately.

“Can we talk about this at least a little?” Mikasa asked, words coming out terse and short.

Annie said nothing.

Mikasa sighed. “I’m guessing you remember what happened. Would you be any happier if we’d actually had sex last night?”

“No,” Annie said.

“Then why are you so pissed at me?”

She looked at Mikasa and grit out, “I’m not mad at you.”

“Look, I’m not stupid. I know you’ve been nervous—you’ve told me to stop more than once. I wasn’t going to let you avoid that by being drunk. If you’re not mad at me, are you mad at yourself and what you tried to do?” The answer was written on Annie’s face with the tension that came to her. Mikasa’s shoulders slumped, and she tugged Annie closer to wrap her arms around her.

“Fuck you for playing detective on me,” Annie grumbled into her chest.

Mikasa huffed a laugh and stroked her hair. “That wasn’t so much ‘playing detective’ as it was ‘Annie is not being upfront about something obvious.’ I’ve kind of had you pegged like that since what happened in the hospital between you and Christa. Come here.” She led Annie back to the car, sitting on the trunk and patting beside herself.

Annie sat next to her and said, “Sorry.”

She put her hand on Annie’s back. “I shouldn’t have started at dinner, so I’m sorry, too.” Slowly, she reached down to Annie’s hip and pulled her closer. “Do you want to tell me at all what’s wrong?”

“Not particularly,” she said. “It’s stupid.”

“It seems like it’s more than just being nervous about having sex with your new girlfriend.”

Annie went quiet. She felt Mikasa’s hand on her hip, light but warm. Bit by bit, she leaned against her. “I’m worried.”

“What’s wrong?”

She grew still to keep from fidgeting. She did not lift her head, but said, “I still think about Christa sometimes.” Hastily, she added, “Not about sex with her. I just…wind up thinking about her and how badly I screwed that up.”

“Do you think you’re going to do the same thing with me?”

“I worry I will if I move too quickly.” She sighed, looking away. “And I worry that I’ll suddenly start thinking about her whenever we do wind up having sex.” She stared as Mikasa slid off the car, moved in front of her, and kissed her hard enough to make her tilt. Not willing to fall, she grabbed hold of Mikasa’s shoulders and kissed her back. Her breath stuttered when Mikasa took her by the hips and pulled her closer, fingers digging in. Before she could run her tongue over Mikasa’s lips, Mikasa drew back.

With a small, sly smile, Mikasa asked, “Did you think about her just then?”

Annie looked at her, one brow arched. “You do realize that I’m going to kick your ass so badly next week that you _will_ have to call in.”

“You can try,” Mikasa said with a grin.

Annie responding by thumping one of her knees against Mikasa’s side. Mikasa’s frown was given a long kiss, lingering until Mikasa smiled and pushed back. They came away with Mikasa smiling and Annie tentative. “I shouldn’t have acted like that. Sorry.”

“You’re fine,” Mikasa said. “I just didn’t want you to be drunk for the first time we have sex.” She ran her fingers down Annie’s neck. “Drunk sex isn’t actually that fun.”

“Point.” She shivered at the way Mikasa rolled her fingers to scratch lightly at her neck. She pulled her down for another kiss, holding her close with a hand in her hair. They drew back slowly, and Annie kept her close with a hug.

Mikasa chuckled and hugged her in turn. “I hope you’re not worried about this. I’m not mad, and if you’re not mad, then we should be just fine.” In Annie’s ear, she murmured, “I’d like to find ways to make sure you only think about me during sex.”

Despite herself, Annie went red, and it spread up her ears when Mikasa laughed. Half remembering what she had done the night before, she bit down hard on Mikasa’s neck, sucking just as hard. She focused on the sounds Mikasa made, first startled before dropping into faint, hitched breaths. The way Mikasa closed her hands tight in the loose fabric of her hoodie, though, made her stomach clench. She let go, kissing where she’d bitten before lifting her head.

Mikasa, a shade of crimson Annie had not yet seen on her, put a hand on her neck. “Did you leave a mark?”

Annie nudged her hand away. “There will be one soon.”

She sighed and whispered what sounded like a hasty prayer in Spanish. “Well, even if Eren was allowed visitors, I wouldn’t be visiting him today. I don’t think anyone at the hospital wants him yelling like he does.”

“Why would he yell? Because you have a life outside of him and the station?”

“No, that’s—he doesn’t really like that I’m dating you.”

She opened her mouth, closed it slowly, and opened it again to ask, “Why?”

“Because you were one of my cases. He yells at everyone who gets involved at all with their cases, and I think seeing a hickey on me might make him blow a blood vessel in his eye again.”

“Has anyone, your chief perhaps, told him to take anger management classes? Or just told him to not be an ass? Doesn’t he call you his sister?”

Mikasa smiled. “Why do you think Armin was assigned as his partner? He’s calmed down a lot since then.”

Annie shrugged lazily, reaching out to run her fingers along Mikasa’s skin where her collar stopped. “Unfortunately for him,” she said, “I _am_ your girlfriend now, and your case on me closed before we started dating. If I feel like giving you hickeys, I’m going to do so, and he gets to deal with it.”

Her smile deepened. “You’re awful, aren’t you.”

She smirked. “Sometimes.”

Chuckling, shaking her head, Mikasa made Annie tip her head to one side. She murmured, “Payback,” before closing her teeth on Annie’s neck. Annie kept her mouth closed tightly as Mikasa bit over and over, sucking at her skin every so often and running her tongue over the teeth marks she left. Knees starting to tremble, she grasped Mikasa’s sweater by the shoulders. A bite harder than any before made Annie moan softly, and Mikasa kissed her neck one more time before lifting her head.

“Think anyone will give you grief about this?” Mikasa asked, tracing the tender skin soon to bruise.

“Ymir if she sees it. Christa would just blush.”

“And your boss?”

“They’d wink and give me a thumbs up. I try not to acknowledge them when they do that, because they’re very happy to share stories about them and Petra.”

Mikasa let out choked laughter. “I’m glad I don’t go through that with Armin or Eren.”

“They like their privacy?”

“Armin does. Eren’s ace _and_ aromantic, so he wouldn’t have stories.” She saw Annie starting to shiver. “All right, we’ve sat out in the cold long enough. You should go home and bundle up.”

“And what about you?” She rolled her eyes because Mikasa pointed at the gym. “Right, four hours on the weekend.” She brushed her fingers along the bottom of Mikasa’s chin, kissing her again when she leaned down. “Go have fun. Thanks for last night.”

“Thanks for not putting me on the couch.” She gave Annie one more quick kiss before stepping aside to let Annie get down. “Have a good weekend and a good week if we don’t talk before Friday.”

“You too,” said Annie, and they waved as they parted ways. On returning home, Annie sat on her couch and stared at the ceiling. She did not think at first, but began as she brought up her hand to stroke at where Mikasa had bitten. After a time, her thoughts landed on Christmas. A few minutes more sent her to her laptop and onto Amazon, and Wikipedia soon after. She browsed, researched, and made a lengthy note on her phone. A shower later, she set out with multiple locations in mind.


	5. try, fail, try again (2/2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which many good things come to those who wait.
> 
> Part two of two for chapter size.

As it stood, the following week was so busy that Annie barely had time to respond to what texts Mikasa sent. From what Mikasa had told her indistinctly, the citizens had fallen into holiday aggression, and altercations were increasing. Though she assured Annie that she was fine, the unhappy timbre of her voice on a call late Thursday night said otherwise. It made Annie hesitate in admitting that she would not be able to get to class the following night.

For the dejection in Mikasa’s voice when they said goodnight, Annie worked without pause the next Friday to be able to leave on time. It was with some hesitance that she sent an IM to Hanji at quarter to four to ask if they needed her to stay longer. She waited as patiently as she could, knowing they were on a call. When they responded at three fifty-seven and said she could go, she sighed audibly and began to pack up her purse. She made to leave, but stopped when Christa said her name as she passed.

“Off to class?” Christa asked.

“Yep.”

“How’s everything with Mikasa?”

“She’s stressed, too.”

Christa smiled with sympathy in her eyes. “At least she’s not alone right now.”

“You know I’ve never ben a good listener.”

“Yeah, but you sure can cuddle.” She laughed at the way Annie rolled her eyes.

Annie waited for her to stop, and without awkwardness, asked, “How’s Ymir?”

“O-oh. She’s good. No stress like ours, or none that Marco won’t let her throw out of the shop.” She smiled and softly said, “Thank you for asking.”

Annie smiled in return. “I checked with our contact, so unless something goes completely haywire, we should be fine for the holiday. You should ask Hanji if you can go, too.”

“I will. Say hi to Mikasa and have a good weekend and a Merry Christmas.”

“You and Ymir too.” She slipped away, shivering in the underground lot. Even fewer people were at the gym that week, both for the deepened cold and the holiday weekend. The locker room was quiet and cooler than usual, and she did not have to turn her music up so loud to drown out other patrons. Eager to see Mikasa, she cut off her warm-up when she knew the other class ended, and made her way to the classroom.

She pushed the door open not to find Mikasa sitting as per usual, but on her feet and staring into the middle distance with a brilliant smile. Annie stepped inside and said, “Mikasa?”

Somehow, the smile on Mikasa’s face grew brighter still as she turned. In long strides did she cross the room, and she picked Annie up off the floor entirely in a massive hug.

Annie grabbed her shoulders to keep from pitching over. “What the hell are you doing?”

Grinning, Mikasa said, “I made detective.”

Pride filled her chest. She smiled and said, “Told you.” She did not startle when Mikasa set her back on her feet and kissed her hard, instead rising on her toes to push back.

Mikasa wrapped her arms around her when they parted, saying, “I don’t even want to do the class. I just want to go sit somewhere with you.”

“Yes, well, you volunteered to teach it.”

Mikasa went still, and then slackened slightly. “Oh. I need to move that.”

“What?”

“My schedule will be Monday through Friday after New Year’s, daylight hours unless I’m on assignment.”

“You’ll actually be part of the normal working world again.”

“That’ll be different.”

Annie chuckled and stood on her toes again to tap a kiss to Mikasa’s throat. “Good job.” She leaned back to ask, “You probably don’t want me to bruise your ribs again this close to Christmas, right?”

“I’d prefer it if you came over on Christmas Eve.”

“Wait, what?”

Mikasa blushed pale red. “Um. You don’t have to work this weekend, right?”

“No.”

“Would you like to come over for Christmas Eve? I have the whole weekend off.” She let go of her, lifting her hands. “Unless you have other plans.”

“I don’t.” She fidgeted, thinking of what sat on her dining table. “That would be good.”

Mikasa relaxed, smiling again. “Remind me to give you my address before we leave tonight.” She looked away when the door opened and a few woman came in, but quickly looked back to murmur, “We’ll figure out what to do today after class.”

Annie smiled and went away to put her things against a wall. She stood by as the rest of the class arrived, listening to Mikasa explain that the class time would soon be changing. There was only one question of “why,” and there were many congratulations when Mikasa explained. A great deal of cheer pervaded the room as Mikasa led them through forms, and everyone parted with well wishes and season’s tidings on their lips.

“What do you want to do now?” Mikasa asked as Annie put on her shoes.

“If I’d known about you getting the job, I would’ve made a reservation somewhere.”

Mikasa smiled ruefully. “This time of year would need a month or two of notice.”

“True.” She stood up, thought clear in her face. She scratched idly behind one ear, eventually letting out a soft sigh. “I’m not sure. I want to do something kind of special to celebrate, but I don’t know what.”

“We can leave it all to Christmas Eve, if you want. It might be more fun if we spend the day together.”

“I guess.”

Mikasa looked closely at Annie’s expression, gently put out. She leaned down to murmur in her ear, “Unless you missed me as much as I missed you and you really want to do something before we go home tonight.”

“Pretty much,” Annie replied. “As long as we don’t get me drunk again.”

“I think we can figure out something out. Showers first, though.” They went hand in hand, but Annie lingered to let Mikasa slip into a stall first. Despite this, she found herself the first at the locker room entrance, and waited with her hands in her hoodie pocket and her fingers on her stomach. After some time, hands came to rest on her shoulders. Before she could turn, she heard Mikasa whisper, “It’s me,” and then felt her press her lips to the back of her neck.

It was infinitely more gentle than the last kiss she had received on her neck, but something about that gentleness and the soft dig of Mikasa’s fingers into her shoulders made her tremble and stop breathing. She looked at Mikasa when she came to stand at her side.

“You’re so pretty when you blush,” said Mikasa.

“So are you, but it’s harder for me to get up to your neck to make you blush.” She thought, looked in every direction, and gave Mikasa’s ass a quick squeeze. She smirked at the way Mikasa yelped and grabbed her wrist. “That works.”

Mikasa laughed and laced their fingers together. “I thought of something in the shower. It’s not as exciting as a fight, but you might like it.”

Annie acquiesced, following Mikasa to her car and going along for the ride. Mikasa took them toward the northern edge of the city, and stopped at a large shop with a sign that read “Trost.” Getting out of the car, Annie said, “I’ve never really paid attention when I came out this far. What is it?”

“It’s a book, movie, music, and game store where you can buy and sell. I love it.”

“I didn’t think there was a used store here in Sina,” Annie said, stepping inside when Mikasa held open the door. The must of loved and left books hit her first, and she smiled to see the long rows of bookcases and shelving units neatly arranged through the store. She wandered over to the nearest one, barely cognizant of Mikasa following. After thumbing through a number of them, she tucked one under her arm. It was promptly plucked from her grasp by Mikasa and returned to the shelf.

“Why exactly did you do that?” Annie asked, brow raised.

“It’s three days until Christmas. You’re not allowed to buy yourself anything.”

“What?”

“That’s the rule in my family’s house. When it’s the week before Christmas, you can’t buy anything that you might get as a present.”

She smirked. “Sorry, but I don’t think even you could have figured out my reading tastes in the two times you’ve been to my apartment.”

After a moment of frowning, she sighed.

Because she looked so dejected, Annie chuckled and said, “All right, I won’t buy anything. I’ll just look around in case I want something after Christmas.” She went off to peruse the aisles, checking to see if they had one thing or another. After some time of making mental notes, she looked around to find Mikasa. She was at a row toward the back of the store, eyes on a book in her hands.

“You’re not allowed to buy anything either,” Annie remarked, coming up behind her. She looked at the book. “What is that? A comic book? The art is really good.”

Mikasa smiled. “It is. This is the comic that I read in Japan. I own all of it, but I like rereading it.” She put it back on the shelf. “Ready?”

She took Mikasa’s hand, nodding, and they went back to the car and the gym. Mikasa went with Annie to her car, giving her address for Annie to save on her phone. For a few minutes, they hesitated and lingered, not sure how to start a new conversation but not wanting to leave. The wind picked up, making them shudder and move closer.

“You can come over whenever,” Mikasa said, smoothing one palm over the back of Annie’s neck. “Buzz me on the intercom and I’ll let you in.”

“Your complex has an intercom?”

“It’s a closed building. It’s part of why I moved there.” She kissed Annie, long and slow until Annie pushed back. When they parted, Annie stepped in to drape her arms around Mikasa’s waist.

“See you Sunday,” Annie murmured.

“See you then,” said Mikasa. “Drive safe.” They left after waving, and Annie took care on the roads. On arriving home, she sat down on her couch and thought. She looked at her phone, scrolling through her contacts. She stopped at one contact, staring at it. Not once did she lift her thumb to touch it, neither to call nor to text. Raising a brow, frowning, she flicked away from the one contact listed under F, going down to M.

Annie did not deliberate on one contact there, and went into her messages. The last message had been received three months ago, and she had forgotten to send a reply. It recommended a novel in German, and asked her to read its translation and give her thoughts. She thought about both books, sitting read and notated in her bedroom bookcase. Smiling, she fetched both and returned to the couch. She tapped the contact to call.

“Mina?” she said when the call connected.

“ _Annie? Oh my God, hi! I thought you were mad at me when you didn’t text back!_ ”

“No, sorry. It’s been a bad few months. I was in the hospital.”

“ _What? Why? Are you—_ ”

“I’m fine, but thanks. So, your latest translation.”

“ _You got a copy?_ ”

“When don’t I? You made me double-check all of your assignments all four years of college _and_ all four of grad.”

“ _And?_ ”

“It’s good. You got the writer’s poetics down.”

“ _What about you? Any prose translations on the side for you?_ ”

She looked to one side. “Not for a while. It’s been…weird.”

“ _Still wanting Christa?_ ”

Annie smiled. “Actually, we’re getting to be friends again. Mikasa helped with that.”

“ _Mikasa? Who’s that?_ ”

“My girlfriend. She just made detective for Sina’s P.D.”

“ _All right, you’re telling me everything. What’s been going on with you?_ ”

She chuckled and leaned back. “Ready for a story?”

“ _One of **your** stories? Always, weird roomie._ ”

“Thanks for that nickname, ass.”

“ _Love you, too. Okay, talk._ ”

Annie laughed and gladly did so.

————

It was quarter to nine, and though it was colder than any day before it, Annie stood hesitating at the intercom. She toyed with the handles of the bag in her hand, the other hand in her hoodie pocket. A gust of wind hit her in the side so fiercely that she tilted.

“To hell with this,” she grumbled, and she dialed thirty-three on the intercom. The door buzzed, and she slipped inside quickly. It was up to the third floor she went, taking the elevator for laziness. Once more, standing at the door marked thirty-three, she hesitated. She gripped the handles tighter, sighed, and knocked on the door. The lock turned a short time later, and she raised a brow at the deeply amused look on Mikasa’s face.

“What?” she asked.

“I wasn’t expecting you before noon. You didn’t set an alarm on Christmas Eve, did you?”

“No, I just woke up early.”

Mikasa paused, but stepped to one side. “Come in. I’ve got the heat on.” She closed and locked the door while Annie took off her sneakers. Annie went in slowly, looking about as she did. The walls were lined with bookcases, crammed with books and movies alike. An armchair was in one corner, and a large couch on an opposing wall. She stopped on seeing a paused image on a TV in a different corner.

“Is this that comic you were reading?” she asked.

“It is.”

“I’m surprised they found a way to make the art just as good as the comic.” She tilted her head. “What the hell is _that_ thing?”

“A titan,” Mikasa said casually.

“You say that as though I should know what it is.”

“It’s a pretty fun show. Wanna give it a try?”

She glanced at the couch and the blanket bundled on one end. “I’m up for lounging.”

“Are you as cuddly sober?”

“I can be persuaded on a day like this.” She set down the bag on the coffee table.

“What’s this?” Mikasa asked. She reached out and flipped the tag tying the handles together. “You got me a Christmas present?”

“Why wouldn’t I? Do you want to open it now?” She stared as Mikasa’s face turned bright and eager, mouth opening when Mikasa vanished into another room. She returned with a wrapped box and put it in Annie’s hands.

“I’m pretty sure I got your size right, but I kept everything.”

“I swear, if you bought me lingerie as a joke,” Annie started, but went quiet when Mikasa pointed at the box. She sat on the couch and began to unwrap it, pausing only a moment because Mikasa sat next to her. Inside was soft gray-blue fabric, and she lifted it free to find it was a hoodie.

“You have a different one on almost every time I see you, and I thought this would be a nice color for you.”

“Thank you,” Annie said, running her palm along the front of the hoodie. Taking it from the box entirely revealed two things beneath it. She reached in and pulled out the book she’d picked before and an equally soft knitted scarf of a nearly identical color. “Did you make this?”

Mikasa smiled. “No, I had my grandmother come with me when I bought the hoodie so she could buy yarn to make a scarf for you. Here.” She took the scarf and wrapped it around Annie’s neck, getting a good two windings in before draping the ends back over her shoulders. Letting Annie feel at the stitches a moment, she lifted her chin. “It really matches your eyes.”

“Thank you,” Annie said again, pulling Mikasa down by the front of her sweater to kiss her. After pulling away, she put the bag in Mikasa’s lap. “The receipt’s in there in case.”

Mikasa untied the tag and pulled out the tissue paper. She retrieved five thick paperbacks, confusion coming to her as she examined the covers. “I’ve never heard of this author.”

“You have. This is the original pen name of the author of that werewolf novel. It’s their first series of books.”

“Seriously? I didn’t know that.”

“I got curious when Amazon kept listing these for suggestions when I looked at that author, so I looked on Wikipedia. I thought you’d like them.”

“Thank you,” Mikasa said with a smile, finding the first book and opening it.

Annie took pleasure in the great focus that came to Mikasa’s face as she read, brows slightly furrowed. She put the hoodie and scarf on the coffee table, head tilted with consideration. Putting a hand on Mikasa’s knee, she said, “Hey.”

“Huh?” Mikasa said, head snapping up.

“At least let me sit in your lap or something.”

“Oh, sorry.” She set the book down, taking up a remote. She went to the other end of the couch, managing to rearrange a few pillows while getting back to the disc’s main menu. All but flopping down, she smiled and opened her arms. Annie moved closer, settling with her hips between Mikasa’s legs and her back against Mikasa’s stomach. “Comfy?”

“Surprisingly, given your abs.”

“Good.” She hit play, settling back and putting her arms around Annie. She jumped when Annie shot upright as the opening played.

“Go back,” Annie said. When it had started over and she heard it again, she looked over her shoulder. “That’s _German_.”

“What?”

“That first bit is in German. Isn’t this a Japanese show?”

“Yes, but—well, you’ll see. Come here.” She pulled Annie closer after she leaned back. For a while, they were silent as they watched.

“Please tell me the angry idiot isn’t the main character,” Annie sighed.

“Nope,” said Mikasa. “His sister is.”

“Thank God for competent heroes.” She went quiet for a while, watching with interest. As the episode went on, her brows rose. “Wait, I thought those walls where huge.”

“They are.”

“Then what the hell is that thing?”

Mikasa laughed. “I told you. They’re titans.”

“It’s gonna—well, there goes the wall.” She was quiet to a certain point, and then muttered, “Well, that got fucked over fast.”

“Liking it?”

Annie blinked as another person was eaten. “I am, yeah.” Despite this, she suddenly yawned, long and helplessly. “Sorry.”

“Have another dream about me?” Mikasa asked with a grin.

Annie was still and quiet. Eventually, she murmured, “No.”

The grin vanished immediately. “What’s wrong?”

She breathed evenly, but not deeply. “A couple of days ago, I called my roommate in college, Mina. I told her I had been in the hospital, and why I was there. I’ve had bad nightmares for the last two nights.”

Mikasa let out a slow breath, lifting a hand to stroke Annie’s hair. “I’m sorry.”

Annie, in turn, sighed and leaned back more heavily.

“Do you want to keep watching or take a nap?”

“This is interesting, so let’s keep going.” She blinked. “Wait, was that their mom?”

“Yep.”

“And they chose to animate her blood like that. Good God.”

Mikasa chuckled and began to slowly pet Annie’s head. They sat quietly, Annie’s hands finding places on Mikasa’s thighs around the time the closing finished. Though Annie made snide comments at key moments, mostly to remark on an action being amusing or remarkably awful, she never grew bored. Some episodes in, her lips parted at the sight of the heroine vanishing inside a great maw.

“What the fuck?” she said.

“Hmm?”

“Did they really just kill the main character? How many episodes are there?”

“Over fifty.”

“Aren’t we on the fifth? I’m going to be pissed off if we have to start following her idiot brother and the guy who keeps crying.”

Mikasa laughed. “You’ll see.” She kept petting Annie’s head, glad she could hide her amusement. Two more episodes passed, and Mikasa bit her lip when Annie sat upright again.

“That,” Annie started, and went quiet. She watched as the red crystal collar around the collapsed titan’s neck cracked and the heroine peeled herself out of the steaming flesh. “All right, you got me. That’s a good twist.”

Again, Mikasa laughed. “It gets almost everyone.” She looked at her own stomach when it growled, and at Annie when hers did the same. “Well, knowing she’s alive is a good place to pause.” She squirmed to get off the couch, saying, “Come see if you want anything I have to eat.”

Annie followed, looking through cabinets and fridge alike. “I never thought I’d see junk food at your place.”

“I hate health food. Not seeing anything?”

Annie looked up, crossing her arms. “I might if you damn tall people would stop putting things on high shelves.” She choked because Mikasa put her hands low on her hips and lifted her off her feet. Putting a hand on the cabinet, she turned to frown at Mikasa. “Warning next time, please.”

“Okay.” She brought Annie down after she had grabbed an unopened bag of chips. For a moment, she stood with her hands on Annie’s hips. Annie remained still to feel the pressure of her fingers, but soon put the bag on the counter and turned around to set her hands on Mikasa’s sides.

“All healed up?” she asked.

“Yeah. Much easier to breathe now.” She lifted a hand to Annie’s face, leaning down. Their stomachs growled again, and Annie snorted with laughter before putting her forehead to Mikasa’s chest. Mikasa kissed her head, retrieved the chips, and they returned to the couch. Hitting play, they settled into relatively quiet snacking burrowed up against each other.

Mikasa noticed first that Annie was slumping more and more against her, that her riffing was slowing down. When the second disc finished playing, she swapped it out for an old movie. Annie did not question this, instead laying back the moment Mikasa was on the couch. Within the first twenty minutes, Annie had fallen asleep and turned over onto her stomach along Mikasa’s front.

Having moved her books within reach, Mikasa began to read. Despite the interesting story, Annie’s slow breathing soon caught up to her. She set the book aside, shifted slightly, and closed her eyes after putting a hand on Annie’s back. It was some time later that she was woken by Annie’s twitching and muttering to herself with what sounded like fear. Groggy though she was, she brought her hands to Annie’s shoulders and shook.

“Annie,” she said. “You’re okay, wake up. It’s me—you’re safe.”

Annie gave a great flinch and soon lifted her head. She looked around with confusion, but sighed and slumped down after seeing Mikasa’s face.

“Nightmare?” Mikasa asked, rubbing Annie’s back.

“Yeah. Thought he aimed higher.”

“‘M sorry.”

“Were you asleep, too?”

“It was comfy.”

Annie looked at the wall clock across the room. “Jesus, it’s already after five.”

“Really? It was around two twenty when you fell asleep.”

“Aren’t I a great guest.”

“I like you.” She sat up slowly, letting Annie sit as well, and got off the couch. “We can have dinner before you go, if you want.” She went to a window, starting to draw up its blind. “There’s a good Chinese pla—oh _fuck_.”

“What?”

“Come here.”

Annie did so, and her eyes widened at the veritable blizzard beyond the window. “Huh.”

“Um. Well.” She hesitated, bit her lip, and asked, “Can you not go home tonight?” Because Annie only looked at her blankly, she said, “Please. They’re not going to clear the roads anytime soon, and I don’t want you to drive in this.”

There was a faint strain of nerves in Mikasa’s voice, a slight rise in her tense shoulders. Annie replied, “All right. As long as I can borrow some pants for the night.”

“You’ll have to roll them up.”

“Better than jeans.” She watched the snowfall, blowing sideways from the wind. “I’ll get my white Christmas.”

“And I’ll definitely get to kiss you.”

“True.” She leaned against Mikasa. “Think that Chinese place is still open?”

“I’ve gone to them on days as bad as this and they’re happy to get paid for me not wanting to cook.” She went into the kitchen, fishing a menu out of a drawer. They called in an order after Annie picked something, and headed out with a large insulated bag to allow to walking in the weather. They waited only briefly before their order was brought out, and they doubled their pace on returning to the apartment.

“Your hoodie is soaked,” Mikasa said, seeing Annie shivering as she took off her sneakers. “I’ll give you something else.” She passed off the food to go into her bedroom, coming back with a large sweater and warm socks while Annie unpacked the food onto the coffee table. After Annie had swapped out her clothes and Mikasa had gotten dishes and cutlery, they settled in to eat and continue the show.

They were quieter to hear the wind, and when they were done eating they pulled the blanket over themselves. The nightmare had left Annie almost silent, rarely making comments and instead choosing to bundle herself close. Mikasa made no comment, but took the opportunity of the disc ending to swap the show out for one without blood. Annie relaxed slightly and pulled Mikasa’s arm around her.

“Thanks,” she murmured.

“Yep,” said Mikasa, and she brought Annie closer. The comedy of the show managed to get Annie to snicker a number of times, but the food and the time began to make them both grow quiet and slow. It was around the time that the last episode on the disc started that Mikasa drew out the pins holding Annie’s hair and resumed stroking her head.

“You make me feel like a cat when you do that,” Annie said. She leaned into the touch.

Mikasa chuckled. “I’m glad you like it.” She yawned and stretched. “I never take naps.”

“Tired again?”

“Weirdly. Think you can fall back asleep?”

“When can I not?”

She kissed her head. “I’ll find you some pants.” They went into the bedroom after turning off the heat, Mikasa rummaging through a dresser to find sleeping pants. She took her own pajamas into the bathroom, coming out after a pause long enough for Annie to change as well. She smiled at the sight of Annie sitting cross-legged on the end of the bed.

“What?” Annie asked.

“One,” said Mikasa, “you’re staying the night on Christmas Eve. Two, you are incredibly cute in my pajamas.”

“What are you, nearly six feet?”

“Five eight.”

“Christ.”

Mikasa chuckled, going to sit next to her. “At least you’re not as small as Christa.”

She rolled her eyes, rose up to kiss Mikasa’s neck, and then moved to pull back the covers. As she did, she went still at Mikasa sliding a hand up the back of her shirt and sweater. The heat of her palm along her spine made her take a slow breath. Very lightly, clearly anxious, Mikasa ran her nails along her skin as she drew her hand back. They did not move for a moment.

“Sorry,” Mikasa said.

“You’re fine,” Annie replied. “Come here.” She waited for Mikasa to get under the covers before following her and arranging herself in her arms. Catching hold of one of Mikasa’s hands, she lifted it and kissed the inside of her wrist. “Good night, Mikasa.”

She kissed behind Annie’s ear. “Good night.”

————

Mikasa woke because Annie’s foot struck her shin, but barely. Though she could have drifted back to sleep easily, she thought she heard something. She opened one eye and listened. It was a quiet sound from Annie that made her wake fully, and she angled back to turn on her bedside lamp. She went to gently wake Annie again, but she heard something else as she rolled back. Annie let out a moan that had nothing to do with fear.

Instantly, Mikasa’s mouth went dry, and she froze where she lay. Annie shifted, head pressing against her pillow. She inhaled and groaned, shoulders rising. Indistinctly, she said something; Mikasa wondered if it was her name. She felt her throat tighten, but swallowed against it and shook Annie’s shoulder. Annie woke without violence, only inhaling slowly and looking over her shoulder.

“Did you know that you moan in your sleep?” Mikasa asked.

“I wha—” Her cheeks went crimson and she turned away to hide her face in her hands.

Mikasa kissed her temple and said, “I’ll go sleep on the couch.”

“Wha— _why_?”

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“No, just—” She rolled over suddenly and hid her face in Mikasa’s chest. “Hold me.”

She did so, listening to Annie breathe.

“Sorry,” Annie mumbled.

“Why?”

“I feel like I’m being an asshole tease.”

“You’re not getting me worked up on purpose and then telling me no. I’m not mad.”

Annie sighed, pushing her head more firmly against Mikasa. Breathing slow and deep, she said, “I like how you smell.”

“I like how you smell, too.” She played with Annie’s hair. “And I like how soft your hair is. You’re very pretty.” She went still to swallow, and said, “Annie?”

“What?”

“Can…can I ask what you dreamed?” She backpedaled quickly at Annie’s silence, saying, “No, sorry, you don’t have to say.”

Annie sighed and said something too quietly to hear.

“What?”

She inhaled, closed her hands in Mikasa’s sweater, and said, “I dreamt that I stopped being stupid and nervous.” She moved up to put her lips on Mikasa’s neck. Mikasa slipped a hand up the back of her shirt again, and she hummed against her skin.

Mikasa shifted down to meet Annie’s eyes. Cupping her face in her hands, she asked, “Can we?”

Annie barely took the time to say “yes” before kissing her soundly. She smiled to hear Mikasa’s muffled “mmph” and pushed Mikasa onto her back before she could do the same. To keep the cold at bay, Mikasa pulled the blanket high on Annie’s neck after she sat on her hips. As Annie kissed her again, she ran her hands up her sides beneath her clothes to feel her shiver.

“Hey,” Mikasa said with concern. “Will it hurt if I touch where you were cut?”

“Just don’t push on it.”

“Okay.” She brought her hands up again to drag her nails down Annie’s back harder than before. She watched Annie bite her lip, smiling to hear her groan. “So your back is sensitive, too?”

“Yeah.” Before Mikasa could say anything more, she kissed her again, gripping her hair and biting soft at her lips. She meant to bring her mouth down to Mikasa’s throat, but Mikasa flipped them nearly over and pinned her to the mattress. She stared up at her. “Did you just down me?”

“More or less. I haven’t gotten to in a while.” She trailed her hands down Annie’s arms, but did not merely put them under her clothes. Slowly, teasingly, she pushed her sweater and shirt up and away. There was no hesitation on seeing the scar on her stomach, a stark line of pale white. She continued and slipped the clothes beneath the blanket to one side when Annie drew out her arms. For only a moment did she run her fingers over the scar, and then she put her mouth on Annie’s neck.

The bites were hard, hard enough for Annie to suck air between her teeth while her legs twitched. What made her jump, made her sputter, “F-fuck,” was Mikasa scratching hard at the nape of her neck. Mikasa looked at her and the heavy blush on her face, smiling, before turning her over, holding down her arms, and biting the nape of her neck.

Annie closed her hands in the sheets, trying and failing to breathe evenly. When Mikasa brushed away stray hair to get a better angle and bit again, she moaned aloud. Mikasa came away to slip a hand between them and scratched long red lines down her back. Again, Annie moaned, arching against her hand. Before she could slump back down, Mikasa pulled her onto her side, back to Mikasa’s chest.

“Keep rolling us around and we’re going to fall off the bed,” Annie mumbled. She trembled at the sensation of Mikasa biting her neck again.

“I promise I know where we are,” Mikasa said, pressing kisses along the curve of her shoulder. She ran her hands along her sides, bringing her fingers around to her front. Very gently did she touch Annie’s stomach, fingers moving up the center of her chest before cupping her breasts.

Annie closed her eyes, inhaling deeply. “Your hands are warmer than in my dream.”

Though she did not hesitate in starting to run her fingertips over Annie’s nipples, Mikasa did pause in kissing her neck. She waited until Annie was squirming, biting back her exhales at soft pinches, before speaking. “Annie? Do you remember a couple of weeks ago when I texted you and said I had a dream about you?”

“Yeah,” Annie said, whimpering when Mikasa bit her again. “Why?”

“Can I tell you what we did?”

“Sure. Why would you be worried about that?” She exhaled a laugh. “What, did you put me in your handcuffs or something?”

“No, but they wouldn’t be my work ones, if that’s what you were thinking.”

“Then what?”

“Um,” Mikasa said quietly. “I like to use toys.”

Annie blinked once and rolled over. To Mikasa’s deep blush, she said, “And you had fun using them on me in your dream, right?”

“Yeah.”

“All right. As long as I can do the same the next time you come to my place.”

“Deal,” said Mikasa, smiling brightly. She suddenly let go of Annie and slipped out from beneath the covers.

“What’re you doing?” Annie asked as she left the room.

“Turning the heat back on,” Mikasa called back. She ducked into the bathroom for a towel before returning to bed. When she got under the covers, Annie yanked her down onto her stomach before sitting on her thighs.

“Did that comment from before about your work ‘cuffs mean that you have _other_ handcuffs to use?” she asked, pulling Mikasa’s sweater up and off.

“Maybe.” Her breath hitched as Annie began to kiss down the length of her spine. The bite on the small of her back made her gasp, fingers tightening in the sheets.

Annie reached over to wrap her hand around Mikasa’s wrist after coming back up to bite her neck. “Ever let anyone use them on you?”

“Sometimes.”

“Noted,” Annie murmured. “Roll over.” She kissed Mikasa the moment she was on her back, but more gently than she’d planned. The light pressure of Mikasa’s hands on her back made her take her time. Mikasa opened her mouth at the touch of Annie’s tongue to her lips, and she slid her fingers into Annie’s hair. They stayed here for a long while, rarely breathing to taste each other better. Mikasa broke away first to roll them over again, moving down.

At the first pass of Mikasa’s tongue over her nipple, Annie moaned low in her throat. She played with Mikasa’s hair as she licked, twining it through her fingers. Biting her lip came in time with Mikasa sucking, and she curled her fingers closed as Mikasa went back and forth between strokes of her tongue and soft sucks. She went still when Mikasa’s hands came to her hips, thumbs hitching over the waistbands of pants and underwear alike.

“No?” Mikasa asked, lifting her head and looking nervous.

“You’re fine. I got worried I’d think of something else.”

“Did you?”

She smirked. “No, you’re upholding the part where you said you’d make me think only about you.”

“I am very good at keeping my girlfriend in the here and now. May I?”

Annie laughed. “Yes, you may. Do you ask every woman you sleep with if you can take her pants off?”

“I make sure to.” She slipped both pants and underwear down Annie’s hips and off of her legs, tucking them beneath the blanket. Bringing her hands up, she ran her palms along Annie’s legs. A gentle tug with her hands beneath Annie’s knees pulled her closer, and she moved over her on hands and knees.

Raising a brow, Annie asked, “Why are your pants on if you’re planning on using toys?”

Mikasa bit her lip to hold down on laughter. “Because I wanted to see you like this for a second.” She leaned down to kiss her, and did not draw back far. “You are so lovely.”

She hummed quietly, putting her arms around Mikasa’s neck. “Is my bedhead still cute?”

“Right now it’s sexy.”

“Good.” She kissed her briefly before flipping them over once again. When Mikasa laughed, she said, “I can’t get your pants off like that, you tall smartass.”

Still laughing, Mikasa said, “I’m not the tallest person you’ve had sex with, am I?”

“You are, now shut up.” She sighed because Mikasa continued to giggle for a moment, only moving again when she was quiet. She drew down Mikasa’s pants and underwear, putting them aside beneath the blanket. Turning around she paused on seeing a scar that started halfway up Mikasa’s right thigh and went up to her waist. “What happened?”

“The car accident with my parents. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“Good.” Still, she set her hand lightly on her thigh as Mikasa sat up. She tightened her grip as Mikasa lay a hand over the scar on her stomach. Though Mikasa began to reach lower, she paused.

“Lie down,” she said.

“Don’t want to down me again?”

“Not right now. Please?”

She did so, laying her head on a pillow. She shivered as Mikasa dragged her nails up the sides of her legs.

“Will you tell me what you’ve been dreaming?” Mikasa asked. Her eyes widened at the blush that covered Annie’s face. “Oh wow, what’ve we been doing?”

“Nothing weird,” Annie said. “I just—don’t ever tell anyone the details.”

“Okay. Though I’d be happy to listen if you ever wanted to tell me.”

“It…it had to do with showing me how warm your fingers are.”

Though she had to think for a moment, Mikasa smiled so slowly that Annie’s blush worsened. She tipped her head down to kiss Annie’s cheeks and feel the head in them. One hand she kept by Annie’s head to hold herself up, and the other she lay on Annie’s throat. Lightly, she brought her fingers down her chest, pausing to rub her hard nipples. Passing even lighter over her stomach, Mikasa kissed Annie and slipped her fingers between her legs.

Annie moaned into Mikasa’s mouth, hips twitching as Mikasa stroked at her. She drew a deep breath when Mikasa brushed her clit, reaching up to bury her hands in Mikasa’s hair. As Mikasa lifted her head, Annie meant to speak. The urge for words left her with Mikasa pushing a finger inside her. She groaned, tightening her grip.

“I’ve wanted to hear that for a while,” Mikasa whispered in her ear. She pushed a second finger inside, asking, “Can I hear it again?”

She moaned, putting an arm around Mikasa’s neck and holding her close. The pace Mikasa set in rocking her fingers in and out was slow and gentle, and she felt her spine burn. “I’m not complaining, but that’s not going to get me off.”

“Good to know,” Mikasa said, and she pushed in deep to hear Annie swear before drawing out her fingers. She tapped a kiss to Annie’s chest and leaned over to get into the bottom drawer of her nightstand. With fascination did Annie watch her retrieve a strap-on, get off the bed, and put the toy on. The drawer was shut after a small bottle of lube was taken from it, and Mikasa sat on the edge of the bed.

Annie moved behind her, leaning against her heavily. She put her arms around her, toying with her nipples with thumb and forefinger. In between kisses to her shoulders, she heard Mikasa’s breathing deepen. She pressed close against her back to feel the heat coming from it, and she soon propped her chin on Mikasa’s shoulder to watch her hands.

“Are you warming that up?” she asked as Mikasa rubbed her hands, slick with lube, together.

“Yes.”

“You are almost inordinately thoughtful.”

She smiled. “I like women to shiver out of pleasure, not cold.” In a low purr, she said, “I’m doing well with you, and I’d like to not screw that up.”

“Well,” Annie said, biting her neck a moment, “I’ll leave it in your capable hands.” She dropped onto her back with her hands tucked behind her head.

Mikasa laughed. “Don’t tell me that you’re lazy in bed.”

“I never said that. Come here.” She put a hand at the back of Mikasa’s head when she was close enough, pulling her in for a kiss. A light touch to her knee made her open her legs. She groaned, low and long, at Mikasa sliding two fingers back inside her. Still her pace was slow and soft, and Annie wanted to mutter. Mikasa taking her hand away kept her protests down, and she waited as Mikasa dried off her hands and moved between her legs.

“May I?” Mikasa asked again.

Annie nodded, curling her fingers in Mikasa’s hair. She closed her eyes as Mikasa sank into her, moaning when their hips came together. She looked up at the touch of Mikasa’s hand to her chest. “What?”

“You’re blushing all the way to your chest,” said Mikasa. She rocked her hips when Annie opened her mouth, smiling at the way words failed her. “I wanted to tell you how pretty it is.” Seeing the impatience in her eyes, she chuckled and began to move.

Annie moaned, pulling Mikasa down to put her head to her shoulder. She breathed deep and exhaled hard against Mikasa’s skin as she rocked. Her free hand she put on Mikasa’s back, digging her nails in because Mikasa thrust faster. Briefly, she held back the sound in her mouth by biting her lip. The drag of Mikasa’s nails down the nape of her neck made her gasp, and she began to moan freely in Mikasa’s ear.

There was nothing Mikasa wanted to say for a long time. She listened to Annie, to her panting breath and her moans. The sensation of Annie’s nails in her back made her groan and thrust harder, if only to hear Annie curse in a sharp, high voice. Putting both hands down either side of Annie’s head gave her better balance, and she took the time to see what would make Annie moan moan her name.

Soft whimpering was what left Annie at first, and both of her hands came to Mikasa’s hips. She pressed her knees to her sides and inhaled as Mikasa ground against her in return. When Mikasa put a hand in her hair and tugged, she tilted her head back and gladly took her open-mouthed kiss. On parting, she let out a moan of Mikasa’s name and pulled her closer.

“Annie,” Mikasa said in her ear.

Annie could not respond for a moment, fire tracing sharp patterns down her skin at the head of Mikasa’s voice. She swallowed with difficulty and said, “What?”

“I want you to come. Tell me what to do.”

Without speaking, she reached up to catch hold of one of Mikasa’s wrists. She pulled carefully, and guided her hand down between them. Because Mikasa had paused at this, it was easy to bring her thumb to her clit and rub gently.

“What you were doing plus that,” she said. She whimpered again, legs shaking, as Mikasa started to roll her hips while stroking her clit. A bite to her neck left her moaning, rocking against Mikasa as much as she could. The way she tensed and tried to muffle a cry at a harder rub to her clit made Mikasa tremble and repeat herself.

It did not take much more of this before Annie gasped, “ _Mikasa_!” She panted against Mikasa’s shoulder and came, fingers digging into her hips. Mikasa slowed in time with Annie relaxed, stopping once Annie let out a long sigh.

“Much better than my dreams,” Annie mumbled.

Mikasa giggled into her hair. “I’m glad.”

She relaxed her hands enough to slip her fingers around the straps on Mikasa’s hips. “Take this off.”

“Oh. All right.” She drew back slowly and did as she was told. Though she meant to go wash the toy off, the way Annie reached out and dragged her nails down the small of her back made her freeze.

“Put that down and sit,” said Annie.

Mikasa did so, enfolding the toy in the towel and setting it on the nightstand before sitting. She did not have time to speak before Annie pulled her down onto her back and began to kiss her. There was more heat in the kiss than she expected, and when she tried to put her hands into Annie’s hair, her wrists were caught and pinned down. Face burning, she looked at Annie as she lifted her head.

“I’m very tempted to make you tell me where your ‘cuffs are,” Annie murmured. She kissed Mikasa’s cheeks when the blush on them worsened. “Next time. For now, keep your hands on me.” She let go and waited until Mikasa had slipped her fingers into her hair. Giving her one brief kiss, she moved her mouth to her neck and began to bite and lick and suck.

This on its own made Mikasa whimper, and she grew louder at Annie beginning to play with her breasts. Her breath hitched when Annie kissed down her throat and chest to wrap her lips around a nipple. The soft suck given tightened her. She closed her eyes and moaned, “Annie.”

Annie glanced up, saw her eyes, and lifted her head. “Open your eyes.”

“What?”

“Open your eyes.” She waited until Mikasa met her gaze before saying, “Watch.” Eyes still on Mikasa’s, she lowered her head and began to suck her nipple again. She smiled when Mikasa turned scarlet and let out a whimper. Only when she was sure Mikasa would keep her eyes open did she close her own. The sounds Mikasa made, little moans and her name made incomplete with whimpering, guided her on. She licked, slow and firm, in time with rolling her other nipple between thumb and forefinger. A shiver went through her at the way Mikasa’s tightened her grip in her hair.

With her free hand, she drew a path down Mikasa’s body that she painted over with kisses. She lifted her eyes when she reached Mikasa’s hip, looking at her steadily while nipping once at her skin. Even lower she went, and though the blush on Mikasa’s face could not grow darker, she began to tremble. She spread her legs to let Annie settle between them, and groaned at the first long drag of Annie’s tongue over her sex. Annie soon found her clit, and Mikasa could no longer keep her eyes open.

Every so often, Annie would change what she did. She went from licking hard and slow to swift flicks of her tongue, and then pushed two fingers inside of Mikasa. Each change made Mikasa swear in a different language, moaning urgently. What set her to panting was Annie closing her lips around her clit and humming.

“That,” Mikasa gasped. “Oh God, Annie, _that_ , please!”

Annie did as she was asked, humming melodies she didn’t care to place. Mikasa tangled her fingers in Annie’s hair; Annie thrust her fingers harder and faster. When Mikasa abruptly let go, Annie nearly stopped. Because she did not, she felt Mikasa tighten and shake as she came, and heard her moan, “ _Annie_.” As she relaxed, she again put her fingers in Annie’s hair.

“You were trying not to pull, weren’t you,” Annie said, drawing out her fingers.

“Yeah,” Mikasa replied. She smiled dazedly, groaning. “You were right. Way better than a dream.”

Annie smirked. “Dreams never really compare.” She sat up as Mikasa did the same, and retrieved their pajamas from beneath the blanket. “Here.”

Mikasa leaned down to kiss her shoulder in thanks before tugging her clothes on with limbs growing heavy. She stared in some confusion at the sight of Annie dressing and getting out of bed. “Where’re you going?”

“To get a drink. My mouth tastes weird in the morning if I don’t.”

She hummed in quiet agreement and got out of bed, picking up the towel and strap-on. They went into the bathroom, Annie sitting on the counter after cleaning her face and filling the glass by the sink. Drinking slowly, she watched Mikasa wash off the toy. Every so often, she gently kicked Mikasa’s hip.

Mikasa chuckled at this. “Are you trying to goad me into another match when we’ve just had sex?”

“Maybe a little,” Annie replied. “I’ve been wanting to put you on the floor again for weeks.”

“But you had me on my back a minute ago,” Mikasa said with a smile.

Annie smiled in turn and pulled Mikasa closer by her sweater. Kissing her, she said, “That _was_ better than a down.”

Shaking her head, Mikasa set the strap-on on the towel and dried her hands with another. She let Annie finish the glass before picking her up and carrying her back to bed. After hastily turning off the heat, she got under the covers, turned out the lamp, and brought Annie close to cuddle.

“Merry Christmas,” Mikasa said quietly, seeing the time.

“Merry Christmas,” Annie replied, and she pulled Mikasa’s arms tight around her to sleep easier.


	6. to open a new year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The new year is approaching, and Annie decides to mend a bridge with Christa and build a new one with Ymir.
> 
> With Mikasa's help, she finally burns down one more.

Annie felt entirely comfortable leaving her scarf on as she settled in her office on Monday. She put away her purse, setting her phone on the desk. Just as she was opening her email, someone knocked on her door. She looked up to see Christa standing there, wearing a deeply green turtleneck sweater beneath her coat and smiling brightly.

“That scarf is lovely,” said Christa. “Did Mikasa give it to you?”

“Yeah.” She looked closely at Christa’s sweater as she came in. “Did Ymir give you that?”

“Yep! Here, it’s really soft.” She took off her coat and held out her arm. She smiled as Annie felt at the sweater, and then said, “Can I see your scarf?”

Annie knew her face betrayed her by growing warm. “You can see fine from there.”

Her smile turned knowing. “I know, but I want to feel it.”

She sighed. “I’d say Ymir turned you awful, But I distinctly remember you being proud of the hickies you left on me.” She took off the scarf and handed it to Christa, revealing the marks around her neck.

“To be fair, you were pretty pleased about your handiwork,” Christa remarked, taking the scarf. “Oh, this is really nice! And it goes so well with your eyes, too.” She giggled and handed it back. “I didn’t think Mikasa would knit.”

“Her grandmother does. Mikasa got me a hoodie and a book otherwise. What did you get Ymir?”

“A couple new games she’s been wanting. We played most of Christmas.”

Annie looked at her blankly.

“Video games.”

“Really? You never seemed interested in video games.”

“Ymir introduced me to them when I was having a bad night. It helps to shoot things when you’re mad at people.”

She chuckled. “Don’t let Mikasa hear you say that.” She paused after putting her scarf back on. “You still have bad nights?”

“Oh. Erm, yeah. I…I got an email from my father’s wife about three months after you and I broke up. She said maybe I should visit him.”

Her mind went numb; her mouth felt full of sand. “Oh. I’m…sorry.”

Christa shrugged, smiling awkwardly. “I didn’t reply, and Ymir gave me her two-DS and taught me how to play Pokemon.”

She smirked, though uncertain if she should. “I don’t know what’s weirder, the fact that Ymir still plays Pokemon, or the fact that you never played it. Even I played it when I was little.”

“Yeah, but your mom was nice and actually gave you things.” She giggled. “She gave _me_ a quilt a few months after we started dating, remember? It’s still the nicest quilt I own. I wish I could’ve thanked her more.”

Annie smiled. “She knew. And you said so when you visited her with me. She told me how happy that made her.”

Christa saw the way Annie’s shoulders began to slump and sat down on the edge of Annie’s desk. “Hey.”

“What?”

“It’s the seventh, right?”

“Yeah. Two years.”

“Has…has your dad ever come to visit her?”

“If he has, he never told me or visited me.” She sighed. “Christa, why are we talking about our fathers when that’s what fucked us up?”

“Because I’m tired of being mad,” Christa said. “And I want to start next year right—no more of this awkward stuff.”

She looked at Christa with a slight rise in her brow. “You called my father an asshole and quite a lot of other worse things. You’re not apologizing for that, are you?”

“Well…no. I still think he is. And I know you still think I should be more loyal to my father.”

Annie looked down for a moment before meeting Christa’s eyes. “I called you an ungrateful ass of a daughter. I shouldn’t have. I was wrong, and I’m sorry.”

Christa was silent for a few moments, brows up and lips parted. Quietly, she said, “I still think your dad’s a jerk, but I shouldn’t have tried to hurt your feelings like I did. I’m sorry, too.”

They both went silent, looking at each other with hesitance. After nearly a minute, Annie said, “We finally apologized.”

Christa smiled anxiously. “We did. I feel a lot better.”

“Me too,” Annie said. She swallowed, feeling bold, and quickly said, “Does Ymir still want us to go out drinking together?”

Her smile lost its anxiety instantly, her eyes growing wide. “Oh my God, do you and Mikasa want to do that?”

“We do. Mikasa said she doesn’t have to work New Year’s, so if Ymir is free we can do New Year’s Eve.”

Christa put her hands together out of excitement. “Yes! We were going to to out that night anyway!”

Annie chuckled helplessly. “Which one of you wanted to do this more?”

“It’s about fifty-fifty. Ymir wants to see you two drunk, and I want to get to know Mikasa.”

“She feels the same way about you.”

“Even though I yelled at you and hit you in the hospital?”

“I’m pretty sure I deserved that.”

Christa rolled her eyes, shaking her head. “No, you deserved to meet Mikasa. I’m glad you did.” She jumped at the chime of an appointment reminder from Annie’s email. “Oh, right, the Trinity meeting. Let’s have lunch so we can talk about New Year’s Eve, okay?”

“Definitely.” She smiled when Christa leaned down and kissed her cheek. As Christa started to leave, she said, “You’ll have to warn Ymir to not harass Mikasa unless she wants to get arrested by a detective.”

“You’re not allowed to tell me that your girlfriend got a promotion right before we have a call with our contact!” Christa said, pouting. “God, you awful woman!”

Annie laughed. “But it’s so worth it to see you flustered.”

“I’m going to kick you at lunch. Seriously, no more until later. I need to find my notes. Our contact asked me another weird question before the holiday.”

“They are a charmingly pedantic asshole, to use their words,” Annie remarked. “Go on.” She made no more comments, instead picking up her phone to set it on silent. Before she put it down, she took a moment to send a text to Mikasa: _Have a good day. <3_ She waited briefly and then smiled when her phone vibrated in her hand with a reply.

_You too. <3_

She locked her phone and put it to one side. She knew she was blushing faintly, and she felt pleased that no one would see it.

————

Their plan had been for Mikasa to spend the long weekend at Annie’s apartment to make everything simpler on New Year’s Eve. While Annie had meant for them to be lazy and stay under a blanket on the couch, Mikasa smiling slyly and producing a pair of handcuffs from her backpack sent all thoughts of laziness out of her mind in an instant.

Annie was not sure what she liked best. Mikasa’s abs were a marvel unto themselves, but there was a great deal to be said for the coil and arch of her back when she was facedown on the bed with her hands cuffed to a post of the headboard. Annie did everything to make her moan and shiver, succeeding marvelously multiple times.

Mikasa barely needed any time at all to recover from these moments, turning the tables on Annie with ease. Annie found herself pinned just as much, at one point handcuffed while on her back and entirely at Mikasa’s mercy. She had no desire to complain with Mikasa’s fingers and tongue all over her and inside her so deep she wanted to cry.

They slept late on Saturday, having been up half the night. The ache in their hips only spurred them on, and most of the day was spent ignoring what they put on to watch.

“How are you so perfectly tiny?” Mikasa panted in Annie’s ear. They were half-clothed on the couch, Annie in Mikasa’s lap and rocking up and down on the toy strapped to Mikasa’s hips.

“You’re just tall,” Annie said, cheek to Mikasa’s shoulder. She whimpered at the dig of Mikasa’s nails in the small of her back. She leaned back to kiss her, moaning against her lips because Mikasa’s hands moved to her hips to pull her down hard and fast. It did not take long for Mikasa to reach between them and stroke at Annie’s clit. Annie pressed her forehead to Mikasa’s neck as she came, her hitching breath hot on her skin.

She ran her fingers through Mikasa’s damp hair once she had calmed, letting out a pleased hum. Smiling, she asked, “Have I mentioned that it’s nice to be dating someone whose sex drive is as high as mine?”

Mikasa chuckled. “I know the feeling. I’m glad you stayed on Christmas Eve.”

“So am I,” Annie said. She kissed Mikasa’s neck, nipping now and then. She lifted her hips, exhaling hard when the toy slipped out of her. Mikasa followed her guidance, lying down after Annie undid the straps and set it all aside on the towel on the coffee table. The touch of Annie’s fingers between her legs, slow and careful, made her shift and groan. Annie lay down atop her, setting her ear on her chest to hear how her heartbeat changed.

Charming though it and Mikasa’s whimpers were, she held herself up to watch Mikasa’s eyes and how they closed. She set small kisses on Mikasa’s lips to feel her breath, smiling when Mikasa moaned her name. Annie did not stop until Mikasa came, shaking and gasping, and settled on top of her with a long, content sigh.

“Have we even had lunch?” Mikasa asked suddenly, sounding dazed. “I know we had breakfast because I didn’t let you finish drying the dishes.”

Annie laughed. “Is that your way of saying ‘enough for now’?”

“Maybe a little. But,” she said on hearing Annie’s stomach growl, “you might need a break, too.”

“Fair point.” She did not get up until she had kissed Mikasa again, and chuckled when Mikasa pulled her back down for more. They stayed there a few minutes more, eventually shifting so Annie was curling up beneath Mikasa’s chin. Mikasa stroked her back with such tenderness that Annie shivered. It would have been nothing to drift off to sleep, but as Mikasa turned her head to settle, she noticed two books on the coffee table.

“What’re those?” she asked.

“Books.”

Mikasa pinched Annie’s side. “You know what I mean. Are they the same book?”

“Sort of. One’s the original German and the other is the US translation.”

“I didn’t know you translated fiction, too.”

“I—no, that’s my college roommate’s translation. She asks me to double check the books she translates.”

“You’re much sweeter than you let on.”

“For the right people.” She sat up to arrange herself beside Mikasa. “You can read some of it.” She handed the English book over once Mikasa was upright, occupying herself with straightening her clothes and wiping off her fingers. Out of curiosity, she reached over to fix Mikasa’s rumpled clothes while she read. Her hand was not swatted away, and she managed to get Mikasa decent without receiving so much as a glance. She leaned heavily against Mikasa’s side.

“You’d keep reading if your apartment caught fire, wouldn’t you,” Annie said.

“Eren threw a nerf football at me one day while I was reading when we all lived together,” Mikasa said, distracted. “It hit me in the face and made my nose bleed all over my book. He cried for twenty minutes while I stopped the bleeding and then bought me five books to make up for it.”

“You have a very odd brother.”

Mikasa smiled and closed the book. “And you have an interesting friend. Do you translate any prose?”

Annie felt her cheeks burn. “Um. Not…not really.”

“Not really or not lately?”

“Both, I guess.”

“Why not? If your friend is asking you to check her work, you have to know what you’re doing.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I worry I make everything really dry, and the novels I like aren’t like that at all.”

“I could tell you if it’s dry.”

The heat shot up Annie’s ears. She looked steadfastly at the coffee table despite feeling Mikasa’s eyes on her. Mikasa gathered her up in her arms, ignoring the quiet, choked noise she let out.

“Have you ever let anyone read what you’ve translated?” Mikasa asked.

“Just…my mother. I translated stories I found online for her to read in the hospital. They were some young German girl’s take on fairy tales, and they took my mother’s mind off everything.”

“You really are sweeter than you let on,” Mikasa said gently. “I bet your mother was really happy you did that for her.”

Annie nodded and pulled Mikasa’s arms tighter around her.

“Can I ask what happened?”

“Kind of a weird topic to talk about after having sex on the couch, don’t you think?”

“I think it’d be weird if I’d asked _while_ we were having sex,” Mikasa said in return. “Our clothes are back on.”

“And that?” Annie asked, indicating the strap-on at the other end of the coffee table.

Mikasa rolled her eyes and reached out with her foot to deftly flip the end of the towel over the toy. “You can tell me if you don’t want to talk about it.”

She sighed softly. “It’s fine, sorry. It’s—she died two years next Sunday. I’ve been trying not to dwell on it.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.” She frowned, sad and small, when Annie shrugged, and she asked, “Did she make that quilt on your bed?”

“She made me almost every blanket and quilt I’ve ever owned. I’ve got my baby quilt somewhere in my closet.”

Mikasa grinned because Annie could not see her and tickled her suddenly. Annie laughed and, startled, did not fight back. Only when Annie had caught her hands did Mikasa laugh, and she asked, “So if you had a baby quilt, were you a fussy kid without it? My grandmother said I almost never fell asleep at night without a car ride when I was a baby.”

Annie smiled. “No, I was really good at falling asleep. All my mom had to do was rock me a little and sing a lullaby.” She hesitated, and then said, “Hang on.” She retrieved her laptop and sat down in Mikasa’s lap. Within a few seconds, she had opened up a folder of pictures and picked the first one.

“Jesus, you were even more tiny and adorable,” Mikasa said, smiling broadly. “This is in Germany, right?”

“Right. I think my mom was twenty-six then.”

“She’s lovely. You’ve got her hair and eyes.”

“And my father’s nose.”

“Not his height, though.” She laughed when Annie pinched her thigh, scrolling through the pictures slowly. “Oh, God, look at your pretty blue dress. Your mom looks so proud of you. Was this your first day of kindergarten?” After Annie nodded, she paused and clicked back and forth through a few pictures. “Was…your father not there for your first day?”

“No,” Annie said. “He doesn’t like visiting the states. He came to my graduations, at least.” She shrugged again. “It might’ve been better on my first day of kindergarten. I was worried my mom was scared for me, so I decided to make her not scared. If my father was there, I probably would’ve cried and tried to stay home.”

Mikasa laughed. “I’ve got a video on my computer where I won’t let go of my mom’s leg when they took me to kindergarten. But then I came home that afternoon and I wouldn’t stop talking about how much fun I had.”

“My teacher made me take a note home to tell my mom how happy how happy he was to have a kid who could already read. She was so proud that she let me have ice cream after dinner. Here.” She clicked to a specific picture, laughing at Mikasa’s burst of giggles.

“I don’t know what’s better,” Mikasa said between giggles, “the fact that you’re sitting on a box in the chair because you’re tiny, or the fact that you’ve got ice cream all over your face. _God_ , you were an adorable kid.”

Annie blushed, but smiled. “What, you don’t have any pictures of you needing a bath?”

“My grandmother has a framed one of me and my parents covered in dirt and sap after a trip to that huge forest north of Stohess. That was a great day.”

Softly, Annie asked, “Do you ever get angry?”

Mikasa looked at her, perplexed. “About what? I get angry about a lot of things.”

“About your parents.”

After a few seconds, she put the laptop aside and pulled Annie closer. “I do. Probably in a different way than you about your mother.” She stroked Annie’s hair. “I don’t know what it’s like to lose someone slowly. You’re stronger than I am for getting through it.”

Annie was silent. She turned to lean against Mikasa’s chest, head on her shoulder. She inhaled, exhaled, and said, “My father never came to see her.”

Mikasa went still. She opened her mouth slightly, but words failed to form in her mind.

“I called him,” Annie said bitterly. “I called him the minute she told me her doctor found spots in her lungs. I left him a voicemail every other day until his inbox was full, and I emailed his military and civilian accounts all the time. He never responded, not even when I told him she died. He still hasn’t.”

“What happened between your parents?”

Annie gently tapped her fingers on Mikasa’s stomach, went still, and took a deep breath. “My father…I don’t know what it really was that was wrong with him. Maybe it was PTSD, maybe it was some other mental illness, but he was paranoid almost every second. He was always convinced that everything was against him, even me and my mom. But he was even more paranoid that the world was against us. That’s why he taught me how to fight when I was still practically a toddler.”

She leaned against her more heavily. “I didn’t want to admit it because he’s my father, but I started getting scared when we visited him in the summer. My mom picked up on it when I was fourteen and we came back to the states early when she confronted him about everything. They had the worst fight I’d ever heard. They wound up getting divorced before I went back to school in the fall.”

“Wow,” Mikasa said, voice faint. “I’m so sorry.”

Annie could not bring herself to shrug. She only murmured, “I wish he would’ve come to her funeral. I would’ve gotten a chance to yell at him. Then maybe I wouldn’t have stayed so loyal to him.”

Mikasa’s brows dropped. “This is what broke you and Christa up.”

“Yeah,” Annie admitted. “Her parents disowned her when she was sixteen, mainly for coming out. We’d talked about our families, but a year or so after my mom died, Christa wound up calling my father…a lot of things. And I called her an ungrateful daughter.” She smiled weakly, feeling her eyes sting. “At least we finally apologized after Christmas.”

“That’s the most you can do,” Mikasa said. She squeezed Annie tight. “What matters is that you did, and that you were there for your mom. She knew you love her.”

Annie chuckled, sniffing once. “You don’t have to pep talk me about my mom. She told me she loved me through the morphine.”

Mikasa frowned slightly, still able to feel stiffness in Annie’s shoulders. She thought, cleared her throat, and began to sing. Annie remained still and silent, listening even as chills went down her spine. As Mikasa went quiet, Annie sniffed again, brows rising.

“I didn’t think you could sing, too,” she said.

“I like to, at least.” She ran her fingers through Annie’s hair. “Anything you want to hear?”

Annie thought. Her cheeks flushed and she turned around to whisper in Mikasa’s ear.

“Oh,” Mikasa said, “my mom sang me that one. Okay.” She draped her arms loosely around Annie, tapping a slow beat on her back. The song she sang then was slow and soothing, a quiet lullaby that made Annie smile and stop wanting to cry. She kissed Mikasa to thank her, and they sat in a comfortable silence for a long while after that.

————

On the night of the thirty-first, they tidied themselves and waited for a knock on the door. Mikasa answered it when it came, and she was startled by Christa hugging her within seconds.

“Happy New Year’s Eve!” Christa said.

“You too,” Mikasa replied, patting Christa’s head. She chuckled at the way Christa hurried to hug Annie as well.

“Your car?” Annie asked once they were all outside.

“Ymir’s driving. She promised to not speed.”

“Wait, Ymir’s the designated driver?” Annie asked, pausing in locking the door.

“Yep,” Christa said, and she cut off any arguments by looping her arms around one each of Annie and Mikasa’s. She let them out to a modest blue car and Ymir sitting on the trunk.

“Hey, detective,” she said, lifting a hand. “Ready to get drunk?”

“As long as we avoid trees,” Mikasa said.

Ymir grinned. Sliding off the trunk, she asked, “Who wants shotgun?”

Without thinking, Annie said, “Dibs.” She blinked, looking more startled than anyone else. “I got used to saying that in college when I went out with Mina and our friends Reiner and Bertholdt.”

“Why?” Christa asked.

“Because Bert and Reiner were tall and it was funny to make them sit in the backseat.”

Ymir sniggered at this and said, “Okay, you called dibs. Come on.” They got in and set off, Ymir taking care to look both ways at all stops and turns. This proved a wise decision, as one driver shot through a red light just as Ymir looked in their direction.

“Jackass,” Ymir grumbled. She glanced in the rearview mirror and saw how Mikasa had gone bone pale and wide-eyed. “Uh…Mikasa? You okay?”

“Fine,” Mikasa said. Christa, though, saw the way Mikasa clutched the seat, and she set her hand on Mikasa’s. Mikasa smiled tentatively at her, and she relaxed by the time they arrived at a small club. As they went to an open booth, they doffed their coats.

“Annie, look!” Christa said, turning to show the low back of her top. Annie stared at the detailed flowers on her skin, brows raised high.

“Ymir, good God,” Annie said. “It looks like you painted this.”

Ymir grinned, tossing her coat to the back of booth before Christa sat down. Annie then noticed her arms, bare to the shoulders, and the way tattoos covered her from shoulders to wrists.

“I guess I’m the odd one out,” Annie said, sitting next to Mikasa.

“I could give you a discount if you want something,” Ymir said. She tilted her head, looking thoughtful. “Something on your bicep, maybe.”

“Don’t you dare try to con me into that tonight,” Annie replied.

Ymir smirked toothily. “Fine, you big baby. You don’t have to get short with me.”

There was a faint lean to her words that Annie almost dismissed, but Christa smiled, rolled her eyes, and said, “Oh, here we go.” Before Annie could comment, Ymir waved someone over to take their drink orders. Once the server had gone off, Ymir set her elbow on Christa’s shoulder, leaning slightly.

“So how do you handle your lady being so short?” she asked Mikasa. “I like to carry mine around.”

Mikasa looked at Annie, smiled, and replied, “She likes getting carried around, actually. Though it was really fun to bench press her.”

“What, like some sex thing or literal bench pressing?”

“Literal bench pressing,” Annie said.

Mikasa looked between Ymir and Christa. “I could bench press you two just fine.”

Ymir looked torn between offense and confusion. “Okay, I can see you doing that to the itty bitty committee here, but—”

“Do you weight less than two hundred and forty pounds?” Annie asked.

“Yeah, but—”

“She can bench press you.”

“Well. Okay then.” She looked at Mikasa curiously. “So you really did dent a tree?”

Mikasa offered her left hand, letting both Ymir and Christa examine the scars.

“Hey, ever punched a guy on duty?” Ymir asked.

“A few times,” Mikasa said. She pointed to the scar on her cheek. “The first time was to get payback for this.”

“ _Nice_ ,” Ymir said. “My boss lets me deck people if they cause trouble.”

“You’re still working for Marco at the one-oh-fourth parlor?”

“Yeah. Wait, you never met my boss when you got your tat’.”

“He’s a favorite of the station. We love how he makes his calls to the police whenever someone gets punched out by his workers. We listen to the recordings for fun.”

Ymir laughed as their drinks arrived. “I didn’t think cops tried to have fun.”

“We’d go mad if we didn’t,” Mikasa replied, smiling. “What do you two do for fun?”

Ymir looked at each other before Christa said, “Pokemon.”

Mikasa froze, her shot glass shy of her mouth. “You—wait, Pokemon?”

“And other games,” Ymir added.

She stared a moment longer before snorting with laughter. She threw back her shot and said, “I haven’t thought about that since going to the Pokemon center in Tokyo.”

“Wow, fuck you,” Ymir said. “I’ve wanted to go to one since I was a kid.”

“Don’t you think you’d scare the kids because you’re so damn tall?” Annie asked.

“Christa’s their height and she’s not scared of me.”

Christa swallowed her mouthful of beer and remarked, “You’re fun to climb.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re lucky I like carrying your spoiled ass around.”

Annie spotted the glance Mikasa directed at her. She set down her beer and asked, “What?”

“Just thinking about how fun it is to carry you around your apartment.”

“Mikasa,” Christa said urgently, “did you know that Annie’s—”

Annie scrambled to say, “Christa, _no_ —”

“— _really_ ticklish?”

Mikasa looked at Christa and said, “I did, actually.” She looked at Annie. “What did you think she was going to say?”

Embarrassed and turning red, Annie muttered, “Nothing,” and took a drink.

“She’ll start crying if you tickle under her arms because she laughs so hard,” Christa said.

Sternly, Annie said, “Mikasa, not in public, I swear to God.”

“All right, don’t worry.”

Ymir caught Christa’s hands before they could slip under her arm. “That goes double for you, smartass.”

“Spoilsport,” Christa said with a pout. Still, she smiled after talking another drink. “Mikasa, Ymir said she did your tattoo almost eight years ago. Is that true?”

Mikasa, having thrown back another shot, had to take a moment to think. “God, it’s been that long since I got into college. Yeah.” She snickered. “Ymir, was I as nervous as I remember?”

“Oh fuck yeah you were. Here, gimme your arm.” She pushed Mikasa’s three-quarter sleeve out of the way and beckoned Annie closer. “‘Kay, this part here with the small gears? When I got out the needs I’d use, she looked at me like I was nuts. But when I finally got out the colors, she was really excited.”

“I went to you on a recommendation, but when I saw the photos up of what you’d done, I knew you could match my grandmother’s drawing.”

Ymir smiled, utterly smug. “I am a badass, this is true. At least you and Christa were great with pain. I had this one asshole last April…God, the hell was his name?” She sighed, tapping hard on her temple. “Fuck. Horse-faced smartass. Jean? Right, Jean Kirstein. Marco asked me to do this military emblem on the guy’s chest, said it was a present for his eighteenth birthday.”

She snorted. “They’ve known each other since Marco was sixteen and Jean was five or something. Marco told me later Jean wanted to prove him wrong about being able to get a tattoo.” In a false whisper, she said, “He got so sick of the kid being a douche about it that he paid me extra that week to shut him up.”

“You didn’t make it hurt on purpose, did you?” Annie asked.

“You pay me, I’m careful,” Ymir replied. “He cried like a baby all on his own.” She regarded Annie with a tilt to her head. “Did you ever actually cry when that guy knifed you?”

“Not once,” Mikasa said. She set down another empty shot glass, totaling four, and wiggled her fingers. Thoughtfully, she mumbled, “Whiskey next.”

Ymir smirked. “Tough lady duo, I guess.” She went still, blinked, and turned to Christa. “Gimme my jacket.”

“Please.”

“Please.” She retrieved a pencil and a small sketchpad from an inner pocket of her jacket and, for a time, was silent. She sketched out a shield made of an elongated, six-point crystalline diamond, and added in the image of a lioness at its center. She considered it, considered Annie, and slid the sketchpad across the table.

“What d’you think?” she asked.

“That depends on where you want to put it on me,” Annie said, and finished of the rest of her beer.

Ymir tapped her own chest, on the left side over her heart. “Here, but—” She smirked when Mikasa frowned and wrapped her arms around Annie protectively. “I think your detective might arrest me.” She huffed a sigh, chin in her hand. “I could always do a bicep or on the back of your shoulder.”

Mikasa looked at the sketch, thought, and tugged on Annie’s shirt to look at her back. “Shoulder would be good.”

“It’d be best,” Christa said. “Mikasa, you’ve seen her back, you know that’s best.”

Mikasa pouted as more drinks arrived. “I know, but I don’t like sharing.”

“No offense,” said Ymir, “but I don’t think me and Annie wanna bang. I’ve got Christa and she’s got you.”

Mikasa continued to pout, but Annie examined the sketch more closely. She tapped a finger on the table, soft and slow. “Why not a lion? Those have manes and all that.”

Ymir scoffed. “Oh, please. Lionesses actually get shit done. You took a guy down _after_ he cut you. This is best.”

Annie hummed, still looking at the sketch. She shivered at Mikasa scratching the nape of her neck. “Not helping me think.”

Christa brightened and said, “Mikasa, you should try—”

Ymir put a hand over Christa’s mouth. “No, babe. She can learn it on her own.”

Annie chuckled, took a drink of her new beer, and casually said, “Ymir, Christa really likes scratches down her back.”

Christa went red, Mikasa’s brows rose, and Ymir stared.

“Anyway,” Annie said, “you don’t do tattoos just based on sketches, right?”

Ymir cleared her throat and took her hand from Christa’s mouth. “If you seriously want it, I’ll do a proper drawing and show you.” She laughed, sounding surprised. “Fuck, you’re interested in getting ink? I wanna record you saying it so you can’t tell me you were drunk.”

“Make it a really good drawing and we’ll see.” She took a drink, swallowed, and realized that Mikasa was playing with her hair. “Are you drunk already?”

“Yeah. But I need either four more shots of tequila or another large whiskey to get really drunk. Maybe both.”

“I’ve never tried whiskey,” said Christa. “Can I?”

In perfect unison, Ymir and Annie said, “You’ll hate it.”

Mikasa smirked. “Christa, have you noticed that they’re getting along much better?” Partly to spite Ymir’s sour look and partly to placate Christa, she slid her glass over. All of them watched with curiosity as Christa took a cautious drink of the liquor. She swallowed, shuddered, and shook her head.

“Oh Jesus, Mikasa,” Christa said, coughing. “How can you not be really drunk after shots _and_ that?”

Ymir laughed and ran her fingers through Christa’s hair. “No one is as much of a lightweight as you, Christa.”

“Annie’s a lightweight,” Christa protested.

“Still not as much as you,” Annie replied.

Christa stuck her tongue out at them as Mikasa took her glass back.

“It should really hit you in a few minutes,” said Mikasa.

“Just remember what you promised this morning,” Ymir said, poking Christa’s side.

Christa sighed, but smiled and nodded. “No fights in front of our friends.”

“Not that I don’t like backing you up in bar fights,” Ymir said, “but I’d prefer that you didn’t punch someone in front of a cop.”

Mikasa drained her glass and pushed it to join the shot glasses. “I don’t think anyone would believe you started a fight, even if your knuckles were bloody.”

“It ain’t _her_ knuckles getting bloody,” Ymir said. “It’s mine, and I am damn sure it was Annie’s before that.”

“At least you don’t have to get someone to bend over so you can punch them in the face,” Annie said.

Ymir chuckled and started to pet Christa’s head. “Yeah, you two are bite-sized.”

Annie tried very briefly to come up with a counterpoint, but found that she was already past tipsy. She decided her arms were cold and empty, and she remedied this by wrapping her arms around one of Mikasa’s and holding tight.

“There it is,” Mikasa said.

“Oh God, she cuddles?” Ymir asked. “I wouldn’t have guessed.”

“Ymir, everyone has to cuddle me,” Christa said. “I can’t date people who don’t cuddle.” As if to drive her point home, she moved to sit sideways in Ymir’s lap. She sat there with her beer in her hands, looking quite content.

“And there’s the whiskey,” Ymir said, but she smiled fondly as she played with Christa’s hair.

“Mikasa, I’m really glad you were the person who helped Annie when she got hurt,” Christa said suddenly. “She needed someone tall in her life.”

Annie blinked slowly, letting go of Mikasa’s arm. “I needed someone tall?”

“Yeah! Now Mikasa can get anything you can’t reach! And also she can give you rides on her shoulders!”

She opened her mouth to reply, but felt Mikasa take hold of her hips. She startled, grabbing the table. “We’re sitting in a club—don’t you dare.”

“But I _can_ give you a ride on my shoulders,” Mikasa said, grinning.

“Not when we’re sitting in a club and not when we’re drinking.” She stared at the dejection that came to Mikasa’s face.

Ymir noticed and laughed. “Aw! Now I see how you got talked into punching a tree.”

Mikasa sighed, but contented herself by pulling Annie into her lap to mirror Ymir and Christa. Annie found no reason to complain about the arrangement and sat drinking her beer. Likewise, Mikasa sipped at the glass of whiskey that had been brought to their table. She blinked and looked up at what she had not noticed before.

Music came from speakers in the ceiling, soft enough to be lost inside conversation but audible if no one spoke. She listened, using her free hand to tap Annie’s knee along with the beat. The song changed and she smiled, starting to sing along in Spanish.

Ymir and Christa both jumped at this, but Annie relaxed against Mikasa. She smiled, closing her eyes, and tapped her glass in time with the song. The way Mikasa scratched behind her ear made her shiver and nearly go limp. When the song was done, Mikasa bundled Annie up in her arms with a distinct look of pleasure on her face.

“Wasn’t that the song you listened to for three days straight?” Ymir said to Christa.

“The one from my favorite podcast?” Christa asked.

“Yeah.”

Christa nodded, softly saying, “I like it even better from a female singer.”

“What, can you only sing while you’re drunk?” Ymir asked.

“No,” said Mikasa. “I just don’t sing in public that much.” She smiled and lay her cheek on Annie’s hair. “I like singing for Annie.”

Christa giggled. “Ymir really likes lullabies at night. She says I’m her good luck charm against nightmares.”

“That’s what you say about _me_ ,” Ymir said, pinching Christa’s cheek gently.

“Is not.”

“Is so.”

“Is not! You told me a month after we started sleeping in the same bed that I help you not have nightmares!”

Ymir sighed. “Fine, but you told me the morning after the first night we slept in the same bed that I kept you from having any more nightmares that night.”

Christa mulled this over, brows furrowed as she followed a timeline inside her head. At length, she said, “Right.”

“What about you, detective?” Ymir asked. “Any nightmares for the little lioness to fight off?”

“Just the normal ones about being shot on duty or getting in a car accident,” Mikasa said. “Nothing too bad.”

“You’re not allowed to get shot,” Annie said.

Mikasa chuckled. “‘Not allowed’? I won’t be able to help it if a perp shoots me.”

“Dodge it.”

Mikasa hid her face in Annie’s hair to muffle her giggles. “A-all right. I’ll dodge.”

Satisfied, Annie took another drink. She thought carefully to bring her question through the haze of alcohol. “Ymir, have you always lived in Sina?”

“Pretty much. My family moved to Stohess when I was eighteen and I just stayed here. I like the city better.”

“No tragic backstory for you?”

Ymir scoffed again, twirling the straw in her glass of soda. “Please. All that’s ‘tragic’ is my parents not really liking that I’m a tattoo artist. But I don’t ask ‘em for money, so who cares if they like it or not?”

Christa grinned. “I like that you’re a tattoo artist. Oh! Ymir, show them the pictures you have on your phone of your art!”

“What, seriously?” She yelped when Christa reached behind her and went into the back pocket of her jeans. After swatting Christa’s arm, she retrieved her phone and unlocked it to open her photos. The first picture in a specific album was chosen, and she passed the phone to Annie.

Holding the phone so Mikasa could see as well, Annie went through the photos. Every photo was one taken of art done in paints, inks, pencil, and colored pencils. The subjects varied from landscapes to portraits, but tended to sway toward the grim and eerie. Annie meant to go past another photo, but Mikasa caught her hand to stop her.

“Is that a werewolf?” Mikasa asked.

“Yeah. It’s a character from a book I like.”

“Is it the wolf queen?”

Ymir smirked, taking back her phone. “Now we need to talk when you’re not drunk. I can’t get Christa to read it.”

“I _will_!” Christa said. “It’s just such a huge book!”

“It’s worth if for the sex scenes alone,” Mikasa said. “Lesbians everywhere.”

Annie snorted into her glass, coughing as much as laughing. “Fuck, really? Okay, I’ll borrow your copy.”

Christa tugged on Ymir’s shirt, quietly asking, “Is that true?”

“Yep,” said Ymir. “So much lady-lovin’.”

Christa blushed to her ears.

Annie grinned. “Now you’ve got her. When she goes red like that, she’ll get the book and read it no matter what. Christa, you are so adorably shy.”

“Be nice,” Christa said, trying to rub the heat from her cheeks. “I never got to read stories with lesbians until I was seventeen.”

Mikasa smiled. “Now’s a good a time as any. And the writer’s really prolific, so you’ll have a lot to read.”

Though she continued to blush, Christa smiled, her eyes bright. “Ymir, can we stay at your place tonight?”

“You’re getting too drunk to read,” Ymir said. “And I left that book at your place on Christmas.”

Christa blinked. “Oh. Then…my place.”

“You two should move in together,” Annie said, sounding distracted.

“What?” said Christa.

“What?” said Annie.

“You said we should move in together,” Ymir said.

Annie looked at them, eyes slightly bleary. “Well…yeah. Haven’t you been dating for, like, six months?”

“Ymir, you were the one that answered the phone when I called about Annie,” Mikasa added. “How often do you stay over?”

Ymir, looking baffled and as though the thought hadn’t crossed her mind, counted on her fingers. She ended with four fingers extended and looked even more confused. “Christa, I’m not at your place four nights a week, am I?”

Christa stared up at her. “You stay Friday and the weekend because you like to and Mondays because you hate Mondays. So you do.”

Ymir slumped against the padded wall of the booth. “Jesus fucking Christ. When did I start doing that?”

“A couple months ago?” Christa said, shrugging her shoulder.

“What the _fuck_ , really?”

“Why’re you so surprised?” Annie asked, snickering.

“Because if you haven’t noticed,” Ymir said, pointing at Christa with both hands, “ _she_ is a sweetheart. _I_ am a jackass.”

For a moment, no one spoke. Annie slowly said, “Um…so am I, and we lived together.”

“Ymir, I like you,” Christa said, soft and reassuring. She sat up to kiss Ymir’s cheek. “I love you.”

Ymir blushed so intensely and looked so lost that Annie decided not to laugh.

Mikasa grinned. “Pretty sure that means you should move in together.”

“I’m good with that!” Christa said. “My place is closer to your work and it’s bigger! And you _know_ my bed is comfier!”

Ymir grumbled. “Yeah, you sat that now while you’re drunk.”

Christa set her glass down to reach up and pinch Ymir’s nose. “Gimme your phone, please.”

“What?”

“Phone, please.” She took it after Ymir locked it and carefully typed in a note. She handed it back, saying, “Read it.”

Ymir took it and read aloud, “‘Ask Christa if she wants me to move in.’”

“Do it tomorrow,” Christa said. “Then you can’t say I’m drunk.”

Helpless, Ymir smiled and started to put her phone away. She caught sight of the time and said, “A little more than half an hour, just so you know.”

Mikasa, having been resting her cheek on the top of Annie’s head, jerked upright. “Really?” She looked around with some difficultly and groped for her jacket.

Annie caught her hand. “What’re you doing?”

After a moment, Mikasa said, “Fireworks.”

Ymir grinned crookedly. “We’re fine. Marco owns a place on a hill with a view of the river, and he lets his employees watch the fireworks from there. We’ve got another fifteen minutes.” Spotting the slump in Mikasa’s shoulders, she sighed. “Look, you wanna make everyone freeze?”

“No, but I don’t want to miss it.”

Ymir sighed, rolling her eyes. “Fine. Show of hands, who wants to go now?” She stared when Mikasa, Annie, and Christa all raised their hands. “God, fuck all of you. Get your jackets.” She moved Christa out of her lap to slide out of the booth, and she steadied Christa when she got to her feet.

They paid their respective tabs and left the club. On returning to the car, Annie made no claim to the passenger seat, instead getting in the back with Mikasa.

Ymir buckled her seatbelt and waited for the others to do likewise. “No fucking in the backseat, you two.”

“No sex if we’re drunk,” Mikasa shot back.

Ymir laughed and said, “Whatever, just don’t bang each other in my car.” She headed out on the road, even more cautious than before. This, in turn, helped Mikasa to relax slightly, though she stared vigilantly out at the road.

Annie noticed and reached out to lace her fingers with Mikasa’s. Mikasa looked at their hands after a moment, and then looked at Annie. The smile that came to her face was gentle, as was the way she squeezed Annie’s fingers and lifted her hand to kiss her knuckles. Annie smiled in return and leaned to put her head on Mikasa’s shoulder.

They arrived some time later to a lone hill near the river on the western side of the city. Ymir pulled into a long driveway going up the hill, parking to one side on a more level section of the hill.

“I’ll be right back,” Ymir said. “Just gotta make sure Marco knows it’s me. Blankets are in the trunk.” She passed the keys to Christa before getting out. Christa got out slightly less smoothly, and she went around to the trunk while Mikasa and Annie unbuckled themselves. By the time they’d closed their doors, Christa had opened the trunk and retrieved a number of thick, large blankets. She stood staring at the open trunk, stymied on how to close it until Annie did it for her.

“Thank you,” Christa said, beaming. She fumbled with the blankets until Mikasa took the largest blanket and spread it over the trunk. “Thank you, too.” Now less burdened, she was able to give them both a blanket before getting onto the trunk with two blankets for herself. Despite wrapping them both around herself when they sat on the trunk, she shivered in the cold. Mikasa spotted this while Annie settled in her lap, and carefully reached out to pull Christa closer. Annie put her arm and a portion of her blanket around Christa’s shoulders.

“Such a baby about the cold,” Annie said, smiling fondly.

“‘M not a furnace like all of you,” Christa said. Still, she relaxed when Mikasa cuddled her and Annie, resting her head on Annie’s shoulder. Very quietly, she said, “I’m glad you’re happy again, Annie.”

Annie rubbed Christa’s shoulder gently. “I’m glad we’re both happy.” She bumped her head against Christa’s, the both of them giggling.

“Hey, what the hell is all this?” Ymir came around the car, a greatly exaggerated frown on her face. “Mikasa, don’t make me call the cops on you and your girlfriend because you’re trying to steal my lady.”

Christa smiled and reached for Ymir, and giggled again when she was picked up and deftly rearranged. Within seconds, she was bundled up tight in a blanket in Ymir’s lap, and she grinned as Ymir draped the other blanket around her own shoulders.

Mikasa blinked slowly, lips parted. “How…how’d you do that?”

“Lots of practice since November,” Ymir said. “She loves it.”

Annie smirked. “Better than I ever managed, but you’re way taller.” She looked behind them, but no one was coming to meet them. “No visits from your boss?”

“Nah, he’s got some weird problem with his right ear. He can’t deal with fireworks outside. He says ‘hey.’” She dug her phone out from her pocket to check the time. “Nice. Four minutes.” After setting her phone down between them, she tapped Annie’s nose. “Any resolutions for you, short stuff?”

Annie flicked her finger. “Not really. You?”

Ymir shrugged and wrapped her arms around Christa. “I’m deciding between not swearing so much at work versus not flat-out decking shitheads who start trouble in the parlor.”

“You could always do both,” Mikasa said to help.

Ymir would’ve rolled her eyes, but had to busy herself with keeping Christa from squirming out of her lap.

“I’m doing it this year,” Christa said, hard and vehement. “I’m telling my father to go to hell, and if he’s already dead I’ll find his grave to spit on it.” She paused to think, and then smiled triumphantly. “Ymir, I want to send him and his wife a picture of you!”

Ymir grinned. “Like we talked about?”

“Yeah! Showing your arms and everything!”

Ymir saw Mikasa’s confusion and clarified. “Her folks are such uptight bigots that Christa bets sending them a picture of me and saying we’re dating would make their heads explode. I’ve always said we should do it, but she keeps getting cold feet.”

“We’re gonna do it!” Christa said. “Tomorrow, okay?”

“I’m down, don’t worry. Oh, here we go.” She picked up her phone, holding it between them to watch a timer counting down. When the timer stopped, the date on the screen changed. Further up the river, they could hear cheering just before the first round of fireworks went up.

As far as real words went, they were silent. In between the thumping bangs of the fireworks could be heard Christa’s giggles and Ymir’s pleased whistles. Annie held Mikasa’s arms around her, smiling when she heard Mikasa murmur with awe. She settled, and as she did so too did a thought in her mind. For a moment, she was taken aback by it. She blinked once, twice, and then looked at the fireworks knowing the thought would not slip away.

Only when the final wave of the fireworks had gone up and their glittering ash stars were dark did any of them move. Ymir yawned and stretched, saying, “And a happy new year.” She tipped Christa’s head back to kiss her brow before unwrapping the blanket around her.

Mikasa helped Annie down onto her feet, passing both blankets to Ymir so all of them could be returned to the trunk. They piled back into the car, and Ymir waited for seatbelts to be buckled before turning the key. Before she shifted out of park, she looked at Mikasa.

“What about you, detective? Any resolutions?”

Smiling again, Mikasa replied, “Try and get to bench pressing two-eighty.”

Ymir made a face while Annie and Christa laughed. After a moment, Ymir took them back out on the road. She went slow and careful, taking back roads to return to Annie’s apartment. When they arrived, Annie paused on realizing Ymir had turned the car off, not simply parked.

“Come on, we’ll walk you to your door,” Ymir said. She steadied Christa once as they went, but full-on caught Mikasa when her feet slipped on a patch of ice on the sidewalk.

Mikasa, looking startled, adjusted her coat when Ymir stood her up. “That usually doesn’t happen.”

Ymir shrugged, smiling. “Gotta happen once or twice.” When they reached Annie’s apartment, she hugged Annie and Mikasa quickly and briefly, and her place was taken by Christa.

“Happy New Year,” said Christa. She pulled Mikasa down to touch a kiss to her cheek. Annie was next, and Christa hugged her fiercely. “Happy New Year, Annie.”

Annie hugged her in turn before tipping Christa’s chin down to kiss her forehead. “Happy New Year.” She smiled and let Christa go. “Drive safe, okay?”

Ymir nodded as she put her arm around Christa’s shoulders. “I’ll text you from her phone once we get home. G’night, ladies.”

They waved for a moment before Ymir and Christa turned to go. Annie unlocked the door and went inside, closing and locking the door once Mikasa followed her. When she flicked on the entryway light, she found Mikasa standing with her head against the wall.

“You didn’t seem that drunk,” Annie said.

“Drunk, cold outside, loud noises,” Mikasa mumbled. “My head hurts so bad.”

Annie smiled and reached up to unwind Mikasa’s scarf. “Go get ready for bed. I’ll get something for your headache.”

Mikasa nodded, squinting against the light, and took off her coat. She shuffled off to the bedroom after handing her coat, and Annie headed into the living room. She put her and Mikasa’s scarves on the couch along with her purse and hoodie. She went to the kitchen for a water bottle, but paused on her return to get both of their phones from her purse. She made a final detour to the bathroom and grab a bottle of ibuprofen, and stopped in the bedroom doorway because the room was completely dark.

“Did you manage to get changed without the lights on?” she asked.

“Yes,” Mikasa groaned.

“Well, I’m not a cat, so mind your eyes.” She waited a few seconds before flicking the switch that powered her bedside lamp. The sight of Mikasa curled up in a ball under the blanket made her snort with laughter. “Oh my God, sit up already.”

Mikasa did so begrudgingly, and she sat stone still with her eyes closed even when Annie pushed both bottles into her hands. “What’re these?”

“Water and ibuprofen. Stop being a baby and open your eyes.”

Mikasa frowned, but opened her eyes to take two pills and swallow them down with most of the water. She set everything aside on the nightstand and settled against the headboard with her hands resting lightly on her head.

“Aren’t you older than me?” Mikasa said, the cant of her voice pitiful. “How are you better than me right now?”

“I only had two beers,” Annie replied. “You had shots and whiskey. I’m not surprised.” She set their phones on the nightstand before changing into her pajamas. She slid in beside Mikasa, leaning against her.

“That was really fun,” Annie said quietly. She hesitated, and then said, “Thank you. For saying yes when I brought it up again.”

Mikasa lifted her head. “You’re welcome. Why would I say no?”

She shrugged. “Most people don’t want to spend time with their girlfriend’s exes.”

“‘M not worried,” Mikasa said. She reached down to take Annie’s hand. “I know you like me.”

Annie smiled. “I do, yeah.” She set her head on Mikasa’s shoulder, but did not pull the blanket over their legs.

“Um,” Mikasa said, “aren’t we gonna lie down, at least?”

“I’ll fall asleep if I do that, and I want to make sure I get Ymir’s text.”

“Ah. Can I lie down?”

She chuckled. “Go ahead. It shouldn’t be long.”

Mikasa kissed Annie’s cheek before arranging herself with her head on a pillow pressed up against Annie’s thigh. Annie stroked her hair, idly scrolling through her emails and open pages on her browser. After a few minutes, she recalled what she had thought about while watching the fireworks. She went into her contacts and scrolled through them, but could not bring herself to stop at the contact under F.

Her phone chimed and vibrated to announce a text. It read, _Home safe. Sleep tight._ She smiled and locked her phone. After setting it on the nightstand, she turned out the light and settled in the dark. She pulled Mikasa closer gently, near enough that she could feel her soft exhales on her chest. Mikasa, sound asleep, draped her arm over Annie’s side and mumbled half-made syllables. Annie smiled one more time before closing her eyes.

What surprised her most on waking was not her lack of a hangover, but that she had woken before Mikasa. She peered at her alarm clock, finding it was quarter to nine. Though she settled again, she kept her eyes open. She listened to Mikasa breathe and wondered if the complete silence beyond her spoke of more snow. She looked at her phone again and took it with hesitance. She did not unlock it.

“Annie?” Mikasa said faintly.

“Yeah?”

Mikasa opened her eyes, blinked slowly, and reached up to check Annie’s pulse on her neck. After a few seconds, she let her hand drop to the mattress. “Sorry. Weird dream where you didn’t have a pulse.” She stretched where she lay. “What time is it?”

“Almost nine.”

“Wow. Your bed is amazing. My headache’s gone.”

Annie snickered. “Thank God for that.” She took a breath, intent on asking what Mikasa wanted for breakfast. She stopped short when she felt the weight of her phone, swallowed, and said, “Mikasa?”

“What?”

“Can you help me do something?”

“Sure. What is it?”

She drew a deep, shaky breath. “I want to delete my father’s contact info. All of it. Can you…can you help me not lose my nerve?”

“I’ll go get your laptop if you want me to.”

Annie nodded and softly said, “Please.” She kissed Mikasa’s head before she slipped out from beneath the covers, and she sat up when she was gone. She unlocked her phone and opened her contacts, but froze up after opening the contact for “Father.” Scowling, she set her phone down and rubbed her forehead.

Mikasa returned with laptop in hand, but set it down to get back under the covers. “Are you doing all right?”

“I haven’t even looked at his info in my phone in over a year,” Annie said. “I can’t believe how pissed it’s making me.”

“So we’re back to the night we met and I had to keep you from punching out a doctor?” She smiled at Annie when she looked up, and more broadly when Annie cracked a smile.

“Looks like,” Annie said. She tapped her phone to keep it from locking, but did not pick it up. She stared at it, feeling a familiar heat rising through her spine and up into her eyes. “D’you know what the last thing he ever said to me was?”

Mikasa moved closer to set her hand on Annie’s knee. “What?”

“It was at my college graduation. Last time I ever saw him, too. He hugged me and said…he said he’d always be on my side, even if the whole world was my enemy.” She did not bother to bite back her tears. “I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe he would try to get better from whatever was wrong.”

Moving slowly, Mikasa set her hands on Annie’s cheeks and kissed her forehead. Quiet, voice frayed, she said, “Sometimes that doesn’t happen. I’m sorry it didn’t.”

Annie sniffed, glancing up when Mikasa wiped her cheeks with her thumbs. She looked back down and breathed slowly. She tapped the screen to edit the contact. Scrolling through it, she looked at the various numbers and addresses listed within. She reached the bottom and the red-written option to delete the contact.

“‘Bye, Dad,” Annie whispered and she tapped the option and its confirmation. The contact vanished and Annie went still and numb. After a few moments, she took up her laptop and woke it. Tears still in her eyes, she deleted the contact from there as well, along with any email she had sent to her father or received from him. When she was done, she pushed her laptop away and drew her legs up to cry quietly in her knees.

Mikasa did not try to bring her out of this position, instead moving to sit beside her and wrapping her arms around her. She put her head against Annie’s, holding her steady even through the hitches in her breathing.

“Sorry,” Annie eventually hiccuped. “This is a bullshit way to start the new year with your girlfriend.”

“Better than letting it keep eating at you,” Mikasa said. “We’re fine.”

Annie sniffed again and lifted her head to wipe her face. She looked at Mikasa and found her smiling. Mikasa tucked her loose hair behind her ears; Annie smiled helplessly.

“Why is it so easy to fall for you?” Annie asked.

Mikasa thought briefly before shrugging. “I’m falling pretty hard for you, so maybe it helps.”

“I guess.” She rubbed her face completely dry with her sleeves before tugging Mikasa close to kiss her. When she drew back, she said, “Thank you.”

Mikasa kissed her in turn. “You’re welcome.” Still gentle but with more cheer, she asked, “Want me to make breakfast today?”

“Sure,” Annie chuckled. She left her phone and laptop behind to take Mikasa’s hand and head into the kitchen together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all very kindly for reading this story!


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